Hannah kicked him hard under the table, and he winced and then roared with laughter.
After breakfast, Hannah helped wash up before she headed upstairs with a kettle of hot water. She scrubbed her face and arms and sponged the sweat off the rest of herself. She carefully chose a calf-length denim skirt to wear on her job hunt, the only skirt she'd brought with her.
One skirt, one dress. She was going to have to buy some clothes. She paired the skirt with an ivory T-shirt, adding a long-sleeved camp shirt in navy blue to cover up her bare arms. She'd swelter, but better that than have people fainting at the sight of bare arms.
How the dickens could arms offend anyone, she wondered as she brushed and rebraided her hair? If Logan thought the blue dress was suggestive' he ought to be exposed to what was stylish in her own time.
She suddenly wished she'd brought a mini, just to really scandalize him. But her cheeks flushed and a different kind of warmth swept through her body when she remembered the hot and lusty glances he’d shot her way the evening before. He wasn't the kind of man to be shocked for long by a short skirt, she admitted. With those looks and his calculated charm, he probably was on intimate terms with half the women in town.
The thought made her uncomfortable, and she hastily dumped her wash water in the slop bucket and wiped out the basin, then grabbed her handbag and hurried downstairs. She walked past the door of the Nugget and looked in.
There were already at least a dozen men in the place, and as she passed, every single one turned and looked at her. Hannah felt the impact of those hungry male eyes on every inch of her body, and it made her skin crawl. She forced herself to walk slowly and steadily to the door and open it without another glance into the saloon.
Being a woman in Barkerville was very much like being an exotic animal in some zoo. Head high, she sailed out into the street, blinking in the sunlight. She fumbled in her bag for her sunglasses and at the same time dredged up a dose of resolution.
If just being female set her apart in this town, then damn it all, she was going to find some way to make it work for her.
Being female might set her apart, but it wasn't an advantage when it came to getting a job.
By three that afternoon, Hannah felt like a balloon that had lost most of its air as she made her way back to the Nugget. To avoid the stares of the men in the saloon, she scuttled around the side of the building and up the back steps. She fumbled the kitchen door open, dumping the bags she carried on the wooden counter.
It was even hotter in the kitchen than it had been that morning. Daisy and Elvira, their faces flushed and damp, were in the middle of preparing dinner. Daisy was humming to herself, browning onions over the stove.
Elvira looked as if she were about to have a stroke. Her face was scarlet, her thin blond hair plastered to her skull, her narrow mouth pursed into a knot. She was hunched over the table peeling a mountain of potatoes, and she shot a venomous look at Hannah.
"So, you've finally decided to favor us with your presence." She mopped at her forehead with a tea towel and viciously attacked another potato with a lethal-looking knife. “I hope you realize I’ve been waiting for you for three hours now. I couldn't very well go over to the hospital when your mother’s working herself to death here. That scoundrel of a boy is nowhere to be found. He’s not as slow as he seems when it comes to avoiding work. And this kitchen is no place for women in menopause with hot flashes, let me tell you."
Hannah longed to tell Elvira to put a sock in it, but instead she said, "I can take over now if you want to go and see about that job.”
Hannah had a half-peeled potato and a knife in her hand before the words were fully spoken, and Elvira was gone.
“Did you find a job, dear?” Daisy added some chopped carrots to the onions.
“Yeah, I finally did, but it took me hours." Hannah set the knife down and filled a mug with blessedly cold water from the pail, drinking it down in one long draught before she picked up the knife again. “It’s a jungle out there, Mom. I’ve got a much better idea than I had this morning of the social status of women in 1868 and, believe me, it's worse than anything I could have imagined."
She'd been confident that finding a job would simply entail presenting herself at any of the businesses along Main Street and explaining that she had an education and was eager to work. All the businesses she visited were run by men who, she soon learned, had no intention of hiring a woman to do a job a man could do. None of them were the slightest bit interested in whether or not she had an education.
She’d had several slimy offers to “keep house" for men whose rapacious eyes told her more than words just exactly what they expected in the way of services.
"Logan was right about being judged by what you wear, Mom." Over and over again, men had looked her up and down and snickered, and then told her to go apply to someone called Carmen Hall over at Frenchie's. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Carmen Hall was a madam, and that Hannah was being mistaken for a prostitute.
She didn’t tell Daisy all those humiliating details, but she jabbed the knife towards the bundles on the counter. "I had to use some of our gold to buy us clothes. The only way I got hired at all was by promising to wear what my new boss calls modest and appropriate attire, which as far as I can figure doesn’t include a stitch that any of us own. I saw a few women today—not many, but I did pay attention to what they were wearing, and we're going to have to wear the same kind of clothes. Wait till you get a load of what that consists of.”
She rolled her eyes and swiped at a potato. “Straight out of a museum—long skirts, blouses with high necks and long sleeves, ugly long stockings, dresses with snaps and buttons where zippers ought to be. And everything needs to be ironed because wash-and-wear isn't even a gleam in anyone's eye yet. There's no such thing as ladies' ready-to-wear up here, either. Believe it or not, the only place to buy women’s stuff is the barbershop.”
Daisy laughed. "From that Mr. Moses whom Logan introduced us to?"
"The very same. He stocks perfume, hats, shawls, and stockings, as well as ladies’ wear. He’s a nice man. He was the one who sent me over to Pandola’s General Store. He’d heard Pandola was looking for a clerk.”
"Is that where you’ll be working, Hannah?” Daisy dumped the frypan of caramelized onions into the soup pot and added liquid from a stock pot. Her movements were swift and confident, and she looked happier than Hannah had seen her in a long time.
"Yeah. I’ll be there from seven in the morning until seven at night, six days a week. The hours are criminal and the pay is ridiculous, but it was the only job I could find. The owner, Joe Pandola, is a little Italian man. He kept saying I was a good, bigga strong girl. He actually had me lift a couple of boxes to prove I could do it. I thought he was going to make me flex my muscles next. And he asked was I absolutely sure I wasn’t married, as if I would make a mistake about something like that.”
You should be getting married, in just a few more days, a small, sad voice nagged. Her wedding seemed to be little more than a dream she’d had in another lifetime. “I asked him why, and he told me that it’s not considered proper to hire married women as clerks. Can you believe that? And he’d obviously heard about you and Elvira. He grilled me about whether you two were married. The only good thing was he didn’t ask how we got here or why we came,” she told Daisy with a deep sigh. “He had me add a string of numbers, but then he didn’t even check to see if they were right. He really wasn’t very concerned whether I had a brain or not.”
“Oh, but he’d realize how bright you are just by talking to you, Hannah. It’s perfectly obvious you’re exceptionally intelligent. I knew when you were just a baby. You were talking in complete sentences almost before you could walk." A reminiscent smile lit Daisy’s face. “I was so proud of you, I used to take you to the park, and the other mothers always thought you were much older than you were.”
Hannah stopped peeling and gaped at her mother. She couldn’t remember D
aisy ever telling her that before. Hannah swallowed, wondering why she suddenly felt like crying.
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Twelve
Daisy moved the big black soup pot to the back of the stove and tilted the stove lid, again checking the fuel supply. She reached into a box and pulled out a small log, expertly shoving it into the stove and replacing the lid.
Hannah watched, impressed at how well her mother seemed able to cope with the monolith of a stove, to say nothing of the drastic changes in her life. She seemed to be doing better than either Elvira or Hannah.
"Did you apply anywhere else?” Daisy filled two cups with coffee, added sugar to her own, and handed the other to Hannah.
"I'll say I did. I must have gone to ten other businesses—the drug store, the post office, even a couple of hotels. One of the hotels was willing to hire me as a chambermaid, for the grand sum of fourteen dollars a week and room and board. I asked to see the room I’d be in, and it was a smelly cubbyhole with no windows. Logan was also right about accommodation up here. Neither of the hotels had a single empty room to rent. Apparently lots of people are living year round in tents.”
"I remember reading that about Barkerville,” Daisy remarked. “I wish we hadn’t left those guidebooks in the van. They told about what things were like here in the early days. I had a good book at home, too. I read it when I got interested in my great-grandfather. I wish now I’d brought it with me. I’ve forgotten some of the details, and it would be so helpful. Why, we could predict the future, couldn’t we?”
"Yeah, and with the general mentality in this day and age, they’d burn us as witches.”
"Speaking of fire, Hannah, do you recall exactly when Barkerville burned to the ground?”
Hannah shook her head. She knew the event had happened, but she had no idea of the date. She hadn’t bothered to read the guidebooks. She’d counted on Daisy and Elvira to know all about Barkerville.
"I think it was in the fall of the year, but I can’t remember the exact date,” Daisy went on. “Elvira will probably know. She’s got a better head for things like that than I have. I know the whole town was rebuilt afterwards. They improved those terribly uneven walkways and made the street wider."
“Did the entire town burn?"
Daisy thought about it and then nodded. “I’m pretty sure it did, except for maybe one or two businesses. When you look at the way the buildings almost touch one another and all those stovepipes sticking out every which way, it’s pretty obvious there's a fire hazard here."
Hannah thought about the Nugget. “This is one of the few buildings that’s set apart from the others. Maybe it won’t burn. Anyhow, we should warn Logan."
Hannah thought about all the work he’d done on the Nugget and felt sad at the thought of it going up in flames. Then she remembered that he’d won the entire thing in a gambling game. Maybe he deserved to lose it as easily as he’d gained it. But she couldn’t quite make herself believe it.
All day, she’d fought down surges of panic whenever the realization hit her that this primitive town, this impossible place, was going to be her life, at least for an indeterminate time. Those desolate feelings surged up now inside of her, along with all the small humiliations the day had brought, tramping from one business to the next, practically begging for jobs that in her own time she’d never have had to consider, and being insulted just because she was a woman.
She felt the sobs building in her chest, and she didn't have the energy to suppress them any longer. She gulped and set her coffee cup down with a thump. Then she laid her head on the table on her folded arms and began to cry.
“Oh, Hannah. Please don't, dear.”
Through her tears, Hannah realized that Daisy was stroking her back, comforting her, and it felt good, although it took several moments to curtail the wrenching sobs that shook her. Finally she raised her head and accepted the tissue her mother offered.
“We ... we’d better stop crying all the time. We won’t even be able to b-buy any more of these," Hannah hiccuped, folding the soggy tissue and carefully using every bit of it. “There are just so many things we’ll have to do without, Mom.”
“Yes, I do know what you mean.” Daisy glanced around the primitive kitchen. “But it’s also a bit exciting, isn’t it?" She caught a glimpse of Hannah’s incredulous expression and hastily added, “I mean, I miss all the conveniences of home. This is quite different, but... but in some ways, it’s thrilling. I can’t wait to meet Ezekial, and for the first time since your father died, I feel. .. well, I guess 1 feel needed again." She got up and began mixing up flour and soda and sugar in a basin. "Hannah, I actually have a job, one that I know I can do, and that’s incredible."
"Well, I'm glad at least one of us feels okay about all this.” Hannah tried not to sound grumpy, but it was difficult.
Daisy looked remorseful. “Oh, I do realize it’s different for you and Elvira. I don’t have anyone to go back to, and I know she’s missing Gordon quite badly.” She gave Hannah a sidelong glance. "And I suppose you’re lonely for Brad. There’s your wedding, too. I’m sure you’re worrying about missing your wedding.”
"Yeah, I really am." Feeling disconsolate and annoyed at her mother for, of all things, her optimism, Hannah blurted, "I keep hoping this is all a bad dream and I'll wake up.”
Daisy nodded, her expression thoughtful. "It’s funny, but that’s the feeling I had every day until we ended up here. Now, I don’t seem to feel that way at all.” She glanced at the stove, then down at her floury hands. “I wonder if you could check that stove for wood, dear? I’m going to need it quite hot, because I’m making scones.”
For the remainder of the afternoon, Hannah worked, helping prepare what seemed enormous quantities of soup, scones, baked beans, and a vegetable dish Daisy had devised from dried peas, potatoes, and carrots.
She didn’t say so to Daisy, but she wondered who on earth was going to eat this much food. The soup alone filled what looked like a small washtub, and Daisy cut out enough scones to feed an army.
But later that afternoon when Hannah finally found a moment to run upstairs to wash her face and hands and armpits and change her sweaty clothes for something fresh and cool, she was alarmed and astounded to see men lining up outside the closed doors of the dining room.
She wished there were at least a few women among the throng, but there weren’t. She’d learned enough today to suspect that a fair number of those men were coming more for a glimpse of the new women in town than for the food.
She stomped up the stairs, thinking that being female was anything but a comfortable state in this place. She was fed up with men staring at her and making comments on what she was wearing.
She washed and surveyed the meager wardrobe she’d brought with her, remembering the uncomfortable reactions her clothing had roused earlier today.
Well, Logan had warned her. For a few moments, she actually considered putting on the clothing she'd bought that day, but one look at the long-sleeved shirtwaists and ankle-length skirts cured her of that notion.
Serving food was messy work that required practical clothing, and with the heat in that kitchen, she’d die in long sleeves. If the men were hungry enough, she reasoned, they wouldn't give a hoot what the serving person had on, would they?
So she donned her jeans again and a cool shirt and hurried back down to the kitchen, and for the remaining hour until dinner was to be served, she set tables and worried that maybe Daisy hadn’t made enough food. She didn’t mention it to Daisy, however.
Her mother was now suffering a severe case of stage fright, muttering to herself and moving from one chore to the next with a distracted air.
Angus arrived at four-thirty in a clean but unironed shirt, his hair brushed but standing up in back. "Boss says I’m a waiter now,” he announced proudly. “I already washed my hands, see?" He held them out, palms up, for Hannah to inspect, and she had to smile at his innocence.
At five, Logan appeared, impeccable in
a starched white shirt and well-tailored dark suit. “Are you all ready, ladies? We’ve got quite a crowd out there. Word of the new cook has spread like wildfire.” He winked at Daisy, smiled at Hannah, brushed dust from Angus’s pants, and straightened his shirt. Then he opened the doors to the dining room.
Instantly what looked like a horde of men surged in. Within moments every available seat was taken, and Logan went back out to assure the overflow crowd that if they wanted to wait, the Nugget would go on serving food as long as supplies lasted, and that while they waited, drinks would be discounted in the saloon.
With clumsy help from Angus, Hannah began distributing soup, plates of food, and mugs of coffee as Daisy filled them. Just as Hannah had feared, there wasn’t a woman in the place; the clientele was all male, and Hannah was uncomfortably aware of their eyes on her as she moved from dining room to kitchen and back again.
Many of the men attempted to start a conversation, but she was too busy to do more than smile and nod. With the exception of Jeb Slater, they were till extremely polite.
Hannah had just set a bowl of soup in front of Jeb when he leered up at her and without warning grasped her around the waist with an arm that felt like hardened steel. "Give us a little kiss, sweetheart,” he said with a smirk. "I shore do like these pantaloons yer fond a’wearin’.”
He reeked of liquor and sweat, and his touch made Hannah’s skin crawl. She tried to pull away, but he was extremely strong.
"Let go of me,” she ordered, scowling down at him, but he only laughed and pulled her even closer, his fingers digging into her hip, his foul breath enveloping her in waves of stale whiskey and bad breath.
"I said let go of me.” Hannah made one more attempt at breaking free and when it didn’t work, she reached down, picked up the bowl of hot soup and dumped it over Slater’s head.
With a bellow of pain, he jumped to his feet, bits of vegetables and broth dripping off him. His chair overturned, and he staggered a bit, rubbing at his eyes.
Now and Forever: Time Travel Romance Superbundle Page 49