by Merry Farmer
They were all in stitches as they entered the hotel lobby, turning heads as they did.
“That’s a good impression,” Cody said. “A little padding, some shoes with platforms, and you could do a skit in your show about Howard.”
Miriam gasped through her giggles. “We would never be so rude.”
“Oh, I’m sure Howard would love to see himself portrayed on stage,” Mr. Gunn contradicted her. “It’s the rest of town you’d have to worry about.”
Cody snorted. “Can you imagine the way Bonneville would react if Juan here played him?”
“Me, sir?” Juan shuddered into an offended look that was spot-on to the look that had been on Rex Bonneville’s face through most of the meeting.
Miriam had to hold her sides, she was laughing so hard.
“Howard is right about one thing,” Mr. Gunn went on, a mischievous flash in his eyes. “If Athos Strong wants a wife, he should send away to Hurst Home, like you did, right, Cody?”
“Uh…”
“Miles, let me show you the bookkeeping system I was talking about earlier.” Mr. Gunn tugged on Miles’s coat sleeve before Cody could come up with a reply, and the two of them set off across the lobby without another word.
“Coffee.” Juan used only one word before fleeing to the hotel’s restaurant.
Within five seconds, Miriam and Cody were standing alone in the sleepy lobby. Miriam turned to Cody, face still alight with mirth, and lifted her eyebrows. “Oh dear. It seems we have been left to our own devices.”
Cody rubbed the back of his neck and looked at her as if he wasn’t sure whether to run for the hills or sweep her into his arms for an entirely inappropriate kiss. “Looks like it.”
The silence crackled between them. Miriam clasped her hands in front of her, tilted her chin down slightly, and peeked up at Cody through long lashes. “Whatever shall we do?” She ran her tongue along the inside of her bottom lip.
Cody’s eyes were suddenly glued to her mouth. By the look of it, he wanted other things to be glued to her mouth too. He moved the hand that was rubbing his neck to scratch his jaw as if considering. At last, he said, “I dunno. It’s too late for a stroll.”
“And too cold,” Miriam agreed. She took a step closer to him. “We could have coffee.”
“At this time of night?” Cody inched toward her. “Besides, Juan is in there.” He nodded to the restaurant.
“We could…go somewhere else.” Miriam rested a hand on his chest. He was wearing too many thick layers for her to feel his heartbeat, but she imagined it was racing.
“There aren’t any other places in town to go,” he said. “Except the saloon. And I’m not taking you to the saloon.”
“Why not?” she teased him, drawing a circle on his chest with her gloved finger. “Are you chicken?”
Cody’s heated grin spread from ear to ear. He stopped her hand by pressing his own over it, and bent toward her. “No, ma’am. You’re the chicken one, remember? Afraid of little old me.”
She wasn’t sure if he meant it to be an insult, but she yanked her hand away and took a step back anyhow. Her flaring temper flickered a little too close to pleasure for her liking. Good or bad, Cody certain did get a reaction out of her.
“I was being sensible by staying on that train when I wasn’t sure about marrying you.” Rather than snap at him, she spoke in her most sensuous purr. “Just like you’re being sensible by not taking me to the saloon. There’s no telling who I might make friends with there, since you’re not being very friendly.”
Five different emotions muddled together on Cody’s face, all with about as much intensity as the jumble Miriam felt deep in her gut. “Oh, I can be very friendly, if given half a chance,” he rumbled, closing the gap she’d opened between them. He swooped close—so close Miriam lost her breath, her lips parting.
Just as quickly, Cody stepped back. “But you’re not gonna get that chance if you won’t give one to me.” Before Miriam could add anything, Cody reached up and touched the brim of his Stetson, then took another step away, “G’night, Miriam.”
“G’n—aah.” Miriam couldn’t work her way up to words before Cody pivoted and marched out the hotel’s front door. She was left standing there in the blast of cold air that he let in before shutting the door behind him. She clapped a hand to her chest. “Oh, dear.”
It was several more seconds before she could bring herself to move from her spot and head for the stairs leading to her room on the second floor. She was in serious trouble if Cody could leave her speechless like that.
“Mimi.”
Miriam started as she reached the stairway. At the top of the stairs, huddled together, twin looks of mischief on their faces, stood Meizhen and Meiying.
“Mimi,” Meizhen repeated. Neither twin had mastered the correct pronunciation of her name, so they’d settled for calling her ‘Mimi.’
Miriam picked up her skirts and rushed up the stairs as the twins gestured for her.
“Show?” Meiying asked.
“Yes!” Miriam scooped both twins into her arms when she reached the second-floor hallway, and the three jumped and hugged in excitement. “Miles convinced Howard Haskell—the town’s founder and mayor—to help us finance a performance. It will be held in the assembly room at the school on March 5th. Howard wanted to use the school to draw attention to the way it’s growing.” She had no worries about speaking quickly to the twins. They understood far more than they were able to speak themselves.
“We are safe,” Meizhen breathed out in relief. “So good.”
“So happy,” Meiying echoed.
“Yes, it’s perfect.” Miriam whisked them along the hall to the hotel room they were sharing. There was only one large bed, but a cot had been brought in for her. “It will be so nice to rest for a while, even though we have so much work to do before the show.”
“And handsome cowboy?” Meiying asked.
“What handsome cowboy?” Miriam used the excuse of taking off her coat to turn away from them. Her Chinese friends were smart and would know in an instant what she was hiding.
“Handsome cowboy in lobby.” Meizhen scolded her with a playful swat. “Very handsome.”
“Very nice,” Meiying added.
“Very close,” Meizhen took it further.
Both twins made a sound as though they knew all about what sort of things happened with handsome men. Of course, if their background was anything as hair-raising as Miriam’s own background, they probably knew all about those things and more.
“It’s nothing,” Miriam insisted. “Well, not nothing.” She crossed the room to hang up her coat and began undressing for bed.
“Tell about not nothing,” Meiying said, crawling onto the bed and laying on her stomach with her chin propped in her hands.
“Yes, tell, tell.” Meizhen copied her, and within seconds, the two of them were wide-eyed and eager to hear the story.
Miriam let out a breath. “Oh, very well.” She stood before the foot of the bed as though she’d just taken the stage. “Before coming out west, I was…I was staying at a place called Hurst Home. It’s a place where women in trouble can go to be safe.”
The twins exchanged sad looks, as though they could have used such a place.
“Hurst Home is owned by a man here in Haskell, and he and a few others had the idea that the women from Hurst Home could come here as mail-order brides to marry ranchers working in the area.”
“Oh.” Meizhen twisted to sit straight. “Mail-order bride.” She nodded fast, gesturing between her and Meiying.
“Yes.” Meiying sat too. “Mother was mail-order bride from Guangzhou.”
Meizhen nodded. “Mother and Father return to China for children. Brother Chi-ming come back here.”
“Send for us to be mail-order brides,” Meiying finished.
“You?” Miriam blinked, rushing to plop on the bed with her friends. “I had no idea.” She paused. “But…but you’re not married, are you?”
“No,” both sisters said in unison, shaking their heads.
“Arrive San Francisco, but cannot find brother,” Meiying said.
“Hear say he move east with railroad,” Meizhen added.
“We look for him.”
Miriam clasped her hands to her chest. “What a beautiful, sad story. And how frightening to arrive in a foreign land, barely speaking the language, alone, friendless.”
The twins looked at each other and laughed.
“We speak English,” Meizhen said.
“We have uncle in San Francisco,” Meiying added.
They both shrugged, and Meizhen said, “Big adventure.”
“Much fun,” Meiying seconded.
They grinned and giggled over their predicament to the point where Miriam felt as though she was even more of a coward than before. Here her friends had gone through a much more frightening trial than she had, and yet they were able to face whatever life threw at them without getting cold feet. If Cody had sent for one of them, they would be married with babies on the way by now.
“Handsome cowboy is right,” she sighed, slumping, then flopping to her back.
“Why handsome cowboy right?” Meiying asked.
“You marry handsome cowboy?” Meizhen followed with a wink.
“I don’t know.” Miriam sighed, throwing an arm over her eyes in a dramatic post. “I simply don’t know.”
But if the show was going to go on in Haskell—and it was—she would find out.
Chapter Four
The beautiful thing about ranch work, Cody thought as he rode into town the next day, was that there wasn’t as much of it in the winter. At least, there wasn’t enough of it to keep him tied down to Paradise Ranch all day. He was more than happy to leave the last bit of inspecting the part of the herd that hadn’t been taken to market back in the fall to the others. He had more important things to do, more charitable things to do. The Kopanari Company had been given the go-ahead to put on a show, so of course they would need help building their stage and stuff.
“They’re doing all the work over at the school,” Gunn informed him when he strode into The Cattleman Hotel looking to help. That’s all he was doing, helping. Spending time with individual members of the troupe had nothing to do with it.
“Right. The school.” Cody swayed back from the desk, craning his neck to look into the restaurant, then the other way up the grand staircase.
“The entire troupe is at the school,” Gunn clarified, his face so expressionless that Cody knew the man was laughing at him. “Except for Madame Kopanari, who is resting this afternoon. Would you like me to send a maid up to her room to inform her she has a visitor?”
Cody sent Gunn a flat stare. “No, sir. I’ll go to the school.” He rapped on the front desk, then turned to stride out.
“Tell Miss Long that Olga has said she would be pleased to mend her costumes,” Gunn called after him.
Cody raised a hand to acknowledge he’d heard, but didn’t turn back to face the man. Why was it that everyone in town seemed to think he was sweet on Miriam, or that he should be, for that matter? Sure, she was supposed to be his mail-order bride, but she’d wiggled out of that. Why, if anything, his friends and family should be expecting him to get into some kind of confrontation with her. They shouldn’t be grinning like they knew something every time he mentioned her name…or got caught daydreaming…or messed up ordinary tasks.
Haskell’s school was as impressive as any of the other buildings Howard had built as part of his vision for the town. There would be no pokey, one-room schoolhouses as long as Howard had anything to say about it. No, the school was as grand as the town hall, with two stories, large classrooms, and extra halls for dining and assemblies. There were only a hundred or so kids in the entire town, but Howard called that inconsequential. Right now they lumped two grades together in each room and employed only five teachers—which Cody thought was an exorbitant number—but in short time, Howard was convinced there would be hundreds more children filling the halls and desks.
Heck, if folks kept getting married and having babies at the rate they were, Howard would be right. But for now, as Cody walked through the high-ceilinged, white-painted halls of the school, he felt a little like he was in a ghost town. Classes were over for the day, but he could hear children singing behind one of the closed doors. It was the hammering and sawing from the direction of the assembly hall that made him pick up his pace, though.
“Buenas tardes, Cody,” Juan greeted him as soon as he passed through the double-doors and into the vast hall. Juan was bent over something long and rectangular that he had been hammering, but he straightened and stepped away from his work to shake Cody’s hand.
“Hey, Juan.” He took Juan’s hand and thumped him on the back. Cody liked the romantic Spaniard. They’d been out to the Silver Dollar twice in less than forty-eight hours. Juan was all right. “What are you up to here?”
“Constructing a stage.” Juan pivoted and pointed to the far end of the room. “It will go right over there.”
Cody looked where Juan pointed, nodding and humming, but his attention drifted fast. He searched the room. Miles was hammering away at another rectangle like Juan had been building. The back of Cody’s mind registered that the two pieces might eventually fit together to form some sort of platform or dais. Aiden Murphy, Athos Strong, and Jarvis Flint—the foreman on Virginia Piedmont’s half of Paradise Ranch—were busy constructing something more vertical than Juan and Miles’s platform. The Chinese twins sat with Wendy and Corva Haskell in one corner of the room, poring over fabrics and chattering away like a flock of sparrows.
Miriam wasn’t there.
Cody frowned, all the anticipation that had been popping inside him flattening.
“You’ve come to help, no?” Juan asked him.
That’s right, he had. “Yeah.” Cody forced a smile and attempted to push thoughts of Miriam out of his mind. “What do you need me to do?”
“Once we get the frame constructed,” Miles answered, stretching his back as he gestured to his work, “we’ll need to fit the joists in place. We’re starting with the simplest design possible, but I’m designing it so that the whole thing could be expanded on later.”
Cody’s eyebrows shot up at the explanation. He wouldn’t have thought Miles was capable of swatting a fly, much less construction. The man was too refined, too willowy and well-dressed for manual labor. But with his shirtsleeves rolled up and a hammer in his hand, Cody was confident he knew what he was doing.
“Show me where I can start,” he said.
Miles gave him a quick tour of the tools and materials they had at their disposal. He was a capable leader too, and in no time, Cody, Juan, and Miles were busy fitting the frame of the stage together.
They’d been working for fifteen minutes before Miles asked, “You didn’t come here to help, you came here looking for Miriam, didn’t you?”
“No, I came to help,” Cody insisted, a little too fast. When Miles and Juan both chuckled, Cody admitted, “All right, I was looking for Miriam too.”
“She’s auditioning children.” Juan nodded toward the open door leading to the hallway. The sound of children singing was faint, but still there.
“Miriam’s been telling me we should add children to the show since she first joined us back in November.” Miles continued to work as he spoke. “But this is no life for a child.”
Something about the way Miles’s expression clouded prompted Cody to ask, “And you would know?”
Miles laughed mirthlessly. “I’m half Romani. I spent the better part of the first ten years of my life traveling from town to town throughout Europe, performing and begging for my next meal.”
“You ever pick anyone’s pocket?” Cody grinned and finished hammering a nail into the corner joint of the stage.
“Of course.” Miles shrugged. “And unlike some of my childhood peers, I never got caught.”
Cody laughed and straightened.
“How’d you end up in America, leading a troupe of performers?”
“I ended up in America because my father was American.” Miles crossed to the pile of lumber against one wall, Cody following him. “He died when I was very young, but my mother was convinced his family would take me in, so we came here. They wanted nothing to do with a dubious gypsy boy, of course. After that, I had to support my mother. She’s always dreamed of returning home to her family, so it’s been up to me to try to earn that money. With no education and nothing to show for myself but the ability to play five instruments and sing, the theater was my best option.”
Cody nodded, considering. “I’d probably have done the same thing.”
They selected several long pieces of lumber and carried them back to the stage.
“When the West opened, the company I was working with made a tour of California. I saw there was opportunity to be had, so Mother and I left and formed our own company. We decided to set ourselves apart by seeking out foreign performers, like Juan here and the twins.” He nodded across the room. The Chinese twins noticed him and smiled back.
“So then, how did Miriam end up with you lot?” Cody asked, hoping that if he kept his eyes on his work, he wouldn’t sound like an overeager schoolboy.
Miles paused before answering. “She’s very beautiful, your Miriam.”
“She’s not my Miriam,” Cody insisted.
Across the stage frame, Juan snorted a laugh.
“She’s not,” Cody repeated.
Miles shrugged and shook his head, and focused on setting the joists where they should be.
“The company had been performing in California for two years. We never did more than squeak by financially. Certainly not enough for passage back East and then across the ocean to Europe and Mother’s homeland. About six months ago, half of my performers decided to band together with a larger troupe that promised them more money. I put an advertisement in the newspaper, looking for foreign acts who would be willing to travel.”
“And Miriam answered that?” Cody blinked up at Miles in confusion. “But she’s not foreign.”