Ronya scooped eggs onto a plate, slid two pancakes beside them, and added four strips of crispy bacon. Setting the meal on the counter in front of Kathryn, she slid over a plate of butter, a small pitcher of blackberry syrup, and salt- and pepper shakers. She smiled as she refilled Kathryn’s mug. “Do you have any skills?”

  “I’m good at making trouble.”

  Ronya chuckled. “So was your uncle.” She nodded toward the plate. “Eat hearty and give my house a good name.” She lifted her chin. “I’d better check on the gents.” She took the large pot of coffee into the dining room.

  Kathryn sighed. What skills did she have that would do her any good here at the end of the world? What goods and services did this town lack that she could provide? She hadn’t seen a single business catering to women’s needs. She knew fashion trends back East, but would they be appropriate out here in the Wild West? Her mother had insisted she learn the feminine arts: fine needlework, how to play the pianoforte, how to organize and host a dinner party. She knew how to sew, though her own clothing had been made by a seamstress. The thought of spending the rest of her life at such activities gave Kathryn a headache.

  Her stepfather had done his best to marry her off to the scion of a manufacturing family, but Kathryn thought Frederick Taylor Underhill was an arrogant toad who cared nothing about the women and children who worked in his father’s factories. When she refused his proposal, the judge had been apoplectic.

  That misdeed was merely one more added to the list of things the judge held against her.

  Kathryn paid extra for the breakfast and thanked Ronya for allowing her to sit in the kitchen, then headed for Aday’s General Store for supplies. She was delighted to see the homey treasure trove on display. Barrels of flour, sacks of beans, and laddered shelves laden with goods of every kind were before her. Tables filled the store—blankets on one, men’s flannel shirts and dungarees on another. A glass case held a collection of knives; another, guns. Maybe she should buy a small derringer.

  A thin woman in a plain brown woolen dress stood behind the counter, her hair bound beneath a handkerchief. She watched Kathryn move around the store, eyes fixed on her blue dress with matching peplum jacket and hat with lace and silk flowers. Wiping her apron, she greeted Kathryn and introduced herself as Abbie Aday. When Kathryn reciprocated, the woman sucked in her breath and called out, “Nabor! Come quick! City’s niece is here!”

  “Thought he didn’t have any family.” An angular man with a hard face and spectacles came through the back curtain. His eyes shot wide as they swept over her. “You’re related to City?” Kathryn knew she was overdressed for Calvada, but there was no help for it. Everything she owned was too grand for this town. Abbie stared at her hat with blissful admiration, Nabor with open disapproval.

  “I have a list of things I need.” Kathryn handed the list to Abbie.

  Nabor snatched it from her. “Cleaning supplies, white paint, sheets, two blankets, fabric, canned goods, a can opener . . .”

  Hearing it read aloud made Kathryn wonder how much it all would cost. The envelope of money her stepfather had given her would have to last long enough for her to find an occupation.

  Nabor Aday had a calculating gleam in his eyes. He thrust the list at his wife. “Call me when everything is collected, and I’ll handle the rest.” He disappeared behind the curtain while Abbie Aday collected and stacked items on the counter.

  “Your hat is so lovely, Miss Walsh. We haven’t seen anything like that around here.”

  Kathryn heard Nabor snort from behind the curtain.

  “It was made in Boston.”

  “Boston.” Abbie sighed, a dreamy look on her face. “We came from—”

  “Stop talking, Abbie, and get to work!” Nabor called out to her.

  Kathryn leaned closer. “It would be quite easy to make, with the right materials.”

  “Really? Could you? We don’t have a millinery in town.” Her expression brightened. “We may not have what you need right now, but we can order it from Sacramento. I’d be your first customer.” She beamed.

  Nabor appeared, brow furrowed in anger. “No, you won’t. What does any woman need with a hat like that?” He picked up the list. “Get the can of white paint and the cleaning supplies. I’ll get a wheelbarrow.”

  “She doesn’t want a wheelbarrow, Nabor.”

  He looked over his shoulder in disgust. “We’ll need one to deliver the goods. Unless you think you can carry it all for her.”

  Abbie lowered her head and then looked up at Kathryn again. “We all miss City. Everyone loved his newspaper. Now all we have is Stu Bickerson’s Clarion. He’s down Champs-Élysées on the corner of Rome.”

  “Champs-Élysées?” Kathryn gave a soft laugh.

  “Your uncle named our streets after foreign places. Of course, Champs-Élysées is more commonly known as Chump Street.”

  Kathryn did laugh then, and Nabor turned to glare at them.

  Abbie escorted her to the bolts of cloth, and Kathryn made her selection. “Do you have any books, Abbie?”

  “A few. City always had a book in his hands. He must have dozens.”

  Kathryn had been delighted to see the number in his collection. “Yes, but unfortunately, not what I need.”

  “What sort of book are you looking for?”

  Blushing, Kathryn lowered her voice. “Anything on cooking, housekeeping, that sort of thing.”

  Abbie’s gaze swept over her in a telling way. “Of course.” She wove between tables. “We don’t get many requests for books. Ah, here they are.” She pulled a box from beneath a display table. “How about a nickel?” At that price, Kathryn wanted the entire boxful. Leave the beans, she wanted to say. I’ll take the books, but knew she must be practical. While coveting Homer’s Odyssey and Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Kathryn pulled out A Treatise on Domestic Economy by Catharine Beecher. Leafing through, she saw it held much-needed information from cooking, cleaning, and plant propagation to heating, ventilation, and waste management. Calvada could certainly do with some waste management! Snapping the book shut, she tucked it under her arm and pulled out The Practical Housekeeper: A Cyclopedia of Domestic Economy.

  When Abbie had finished gathering all the goods and stacking them on the counter, Nabor took over tallying the prices.

  “You doubled the price of the books, Mr. Aday. Abbie said one nickel for each.”

  “Abbie doesn’t set the prices. I do. And it’ll cost you another dollar to have everything delivered, unless you want to make a few trips yourself.”

  Furious, Kathryn paid him what he said she owed.

  Nabor stayed behind to “manage the store” while Abbie pushed one wheelbarrow and a boy Nabor had drafted for ten cents pushed the other. On the way back to City’s house, Kathryn stuck her head in the stage station door and asked Gus Blather, the station manager, to have her trunk delivered as soon as possible. He put it on a hand truck and followed. Men came out of saloons to watch the parade. Some joined in, one being gentleman enough to take over for Abbie when her wheelbarrow got stuck in the mud. Others traipsed behind, talking among themselves. Matthias Beck came through the swinging doors of his saloon and leaned against a front post, arms crossed, watching.

  Opening the door of the humble little house she intended to make a home, Kathryn sailed in, followed by Abbie, the boy, and Gus Blather. Kathryn thanked each one and whispered to Abbie that she would make her a hat as a gift. As they left, half a dozen men peered inside. Kathryn closed the door firmly and threw the bolt. One man tried to rub dirt off one of the windows to peer in. Kathryn decided not to wash them until she had shades and curtains.

  Standing in the middle of the front office, arms akimbo, Kathryn calculated the work ahead. She’d never actually cleaned a room, let alone two, but knew how it was done. She took the bucket and went out the back door, Abbie having told her where the closest community well was located.

  By midday, the whalebone stays in her corset felt like a torture device. She brushed tendrils of damp hair from her face and went back to scrubbing the front room floor. The bloodstain was there to stay. She would buy a rug to cover it. She’d already emptied the potbellied stove of ashes and refilled it with wood she’d found stacked neatly outside the back door. She hadn’t lit it. The work kept her warm enough. She’d made half a dozen trips to the well, feet sore from the tight, button-up shoes caked with mud. The shoes were ruined, and the weight of the heavy mud left her legs aching. She emptied the cabinets and armoire and washed the shelves before arranging her supplies and unpacking her clothing. The Adays didn’t have a bathtub for sale, but Kathryn did find a laundry washbasin big enough to serve that purpose, as well as several others. She would be washing her own clothes from now on.

  By sundown, Kathryn hadn’t yet finished. She wasn’t presentable enough to cross the street to Ronya’s Café for dinner. Washing up would mean another trip to the well. She would have to start the fire and heat the water. She would have to take down, brush, and put up her hair and dress in clean clothes. She was too tired to do any of those things, too tired to make the bed, and so dirty she didn’t want to use her new sheets.

  Numb with fatigue, hands raw from scrubbing, every muscle in her body aching, she sank down on the edge of the bed. Falling back, arms spread, she went to sleep.

  4

  MATTHIAS CORNERED SCRIBE, grudging concern for Kathryn Walsh eating away at his concentration on more important projects. “Have you seen City’s niece?” He hadn’t seen her out of that house in two days, though he’d heard she’d made numerous trips to the community well. That girl toting water? Hard to imagine. All she’d have to do was ask the first able-bodied man she met, and she’d have a line of them doing her bidding. Ronya told him Kathryn Walsh had received three proposals within five minutes of walking into her café.

  “A butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker.” Ronya had chuckled. “All after her like bears to honey. She hid out in my kitchen. She said she has no plans to marry.”

  “She sat in your kitchen.” The girl looked more the kind to expect a private room and personal servant.

  “Sat at my worktable and visited while I cooked. She had the miner’s plate and a couple cups of coffee. What’s your interest in the girl, Matthias?” Ronya’s mouth curved into a knowing smile.

  “All I want from her is City’s Washington handpress.”

  “Is that so?”

  Since he’d been one of City’s closest friends, it fell to him to keep an eye on her. The sooner she left Calvada, the sooner he could relax his vigil.

  Scribe stopped sweeping the boardwalk and looked across the street like a puppy wanting to go home. “I saw Miss Kathryn yesterday. I told her I’d look in on her and make sure she was all right. I went over three times, but she wouldn’t open the door.”

  “Why not?”

  “She said she wasn’t presentable. She was in the middle of something.”

  “In the middle of what?”

  “Cleaning the house, I guess.”

  For two days? Two rooms in a fourteen-by-twenty? What kind of cleaning took that long?

  Scribe set his broom aside. “I’ll go over—”

  Matthias shot a look at the lovesick lad. “Guard your heart, kid. Pretty is as pretty does. Besides, she’s older than you.”

  Scribe stiffened. “I’ll be seventeen next month.”

  Matthias didn’t think Kathryn Walsh was much older than early twenties. She had that fresh, dewy, untouched look about her, something she’d lose quickly enough if she stayed in Calvada.

  Matthias stepped off the boardwalk and headed across the street. Stamping mud off his boots, he rapped on Kathryn’s door. It opened a few inches, and he got a look at her with her red hair covered, dirt and paint smudging her cheeks. She was wearing a full apron and white gloves, the kind rich girls wore to the opera.

  “Oh. It’s you.”

  Her tone riled him. “Yes. It’s me. Checking to see if you’re alive.”

  “Now that you know I am, you can go.”

  “Not so fast.”

  “I have work to do.”

  His mind scrambled for an excuse to linger and fixed on one. “What do you want for the press?” Her hold had relaxed enough for him to push the door open and get a peek inside. “What in blazes are you doing?”

  Letting go of the door, she waved him in. “Come in, Mr. Beck. Satisfy your curiosity and then go.”

  City’s front office was a white blur. The familiar scents of male sweat, whiskey, and tobacco had been replaced by the strong smell of whitewash paint. The old, battered oak desk had been cleared of the habitual piles of papers and polished. Three books lay open on its surface. He recognized a Bible, noticing underlining and notes in the margins. Kathryn closed the two others quickly and shoved them into a desk drawer before he could read the titles. The overflowing boxes of past issues of the Calvada Voice had been tidied and stacked neatly near the back wall.

  “You’ve looked at everything but the press, Mr. Beck.”

  She’d covered it with flowery gingham and perched two hats, ribboned and plumed, on top, along with other feminine items: a white silk shirtwaist, a blue satin and lace dress suitable for a ball, a pair of high-button shoes, two pairs of gloves like the pair she wore, a pair of lace-trimmed bloomers, and a bustle.

  “Since I can’t move the press, I must make use of it.”

  “As a display table?” He wanted to throttle her. “Your uncle is writhing in his grave. I can get a crew and move it out of here in the next hour.”

  “It stays right where it is.” She gave him a cloying smile. “I think it’s serving a good purpose.”

  Matthias came closer. She stood her ground, but he saw a faint flush rise in her cheeks. “And all because I punched Toby in the street and gave him a much-needed dunking in the trough.”

  She looked up and drew in a soft breath. Mouth pressing tight, she tipped her chin. “I’m not that petty, Mr. Beck.”

  Her eyes reminded him of the new growth on spring pines. “Are you really selling those things you’ve put out?”

  “Are you in need of a pair of bloomers?”

  “What do you suppose people would say if I walked out of here with that pair wrapped around my neck?” When her eyes widened in alarm, he took pity. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

  “There’s no shop for ladies in town.”

  Because there weren’t many ladies, but he held back saying so. The few that were in Calvada couldn’t afford to wear silk and satin, or fancy hats.

  “Abbie liked my hat.”

  Defensive. “Nabor wouldn’t give her a dime to spend on a hat with feathers and flowers on it.”

  She looked troubled. “Well, I hope he will allow her to keep the one I gave her.” She surveyed her display. “I’ll do my best to offer something not already on sale, though I suppose the women’s needs and desires in Calvada run deeper than what I have to offer.” She walked back to her paint bucket.

  “Meaning what?”

  “Nothing that would interest you, I’m sure.”

  “Try me.”

  “I could make you a list, and I’ve only seen what’s on . . . What is the main street called? Champs-Élysées?” She laughed.

  “Your uncle named it.”

  “And Rome and Paris and—”

  “Gomorrah.” He hadn’t meant to blurt that out.

  She blinked, a frown appearing briefly before she stared at him coolly. “I think Chump Street fits better.”

  Someone tapped on the door. “Miss Kathryn?” Scribe peered in. He shot a dark glance at Matthias before he entered. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  Matthias gave a soft snort. What did the kid think he was doing? Molesting her? He gave Kathryn a wry look. “It seems you have a protector, your ladyship.”

  “I can bring in some more firewood, Miss Kathryn. Maybe light your fire.”

  Matthias rolled his eyes.

  “It’s already lit.” She glared at Matthias. “But thank you for being such a gentleman, Scribe.”

  “Anything you need, anytime . . .”

  Annoyed, Matthias jerked his head toward the door. “You already have a job. Get to it.”

  “I finished sweeping.”

  “Then wash shot glasses.” When the boy didn’t move, Matthias took a step in his direction. “Now, Scribe. You’re on my payroll.”

  Scribe left the door half-open on his way out, glancing over his shoulder as he headed back to the saloon.

  Kathryn sighed, clearly aware of the boy’s affections. She looked concerned, not flattered. “Thank you, Mr. Beck.”

  “For chasing him out of here?”

  “For putting a roof over his head and giving him a job.”

  “I always keep my word.”

  Kathryn studied him, and he found himself wondering what she thought. First impressions were hard to overcome. “How about you, Miss Walsh?”

  “What about me?”

  He felt himself slipping into deep water. Why had he come over here? He remembered the reason he’d given. “Will you promise to let me know when you’re ready to sell the press?”

  “You’ll know when I’ve made my decision.” She smoothed down her apron. “Thank you for checking on me, Mr. Beck. As you can see, all is well. Good day.”

  It was the second time she’d dismissed him, and he didn’t like it. “You need checking on, Miss Walsh.”

  “I’m old enough to take care of myself, sir.”