Town Social

by Simmons, Trana Mae

  "Ruth has another stairwell down into the store," Jake explained in answer to Sunny's unasked question. "That way she can go back and forth without getting wet, if it happens to be raining outside."

  "This country is so dry, I doubt she'd have to worry about that very often," Sunny said with a huff.

  "You'd be surprised. Spring and fall are when we get most of our rain. Problem is, the rain comes with some pretty terrific thunderstorms at times, along with tornadoes."

  "Tornadoes?"

  "Yep. It's so flat around here, I watched one boil around out there for fifteen minutes one day, before it finally went back up into the clouds. There. You're all fixed up, except for putting a cloth on that eye. I don't think your finger will need any stitches, if you're careful with it for the next few days. But you can check with the doctor if you want."

  Sunny stared down at her hand, where a neat bandage covered her wound. As Jake held a dishtowel beneath the pump spout, she realized he'd kept her distracted with conversation while he doctored her finger. A second later, he held the cool cloth to her forehead, and she covered his hand with her own.

  "Uh . . . I can hold it there myself," she said when he made no attempt to remove his hand.

  "I'm sure you can," Jake conceded. "And I'll let you do that, as soon as you lift your hand far enough for me to pull mine out from under it without hurting your bruise."

  Sunny sent a baleful, one-eyed glance at his amused face, but raised her hand. After he removed his hold, she caught the cloth before it could drop, then clamped it back over the soreness on her forehead. Carefully, she elevated her bandaged finger, to keep it from getting soaked from the wet cloth.

  Jake walked over to the stove, and quirked an eyebrow as he looked back over his shoulder. "You want a cup of coffee?"

  "No, thank you," Sunny murmured primly. She couldn't decide whether to get up and leave or continue sitting there. She felt ridiculous, alone here in Ruth's kitchen with Jake, nursing both a sore finger and sore head. When she lifted her free hand to jab at a lock of hair falling over her ear, the heel of her palm touched against her dress bodice, brushing the stiffness of drying blood. The gorge rose in her throat and her face felt strange, as though it had tightened and paled.

  "Uh oh," Jake muttered. Slamming his coffee cup onto the table, he grabbed another dishtowel and strode back to the sink. A second later, Sunny's eyes flew open when she felt him rubbing at her breast.

  "Stop that!" she demanded. "What on earth do you think you're doing?"

  Jake shoved her hand aside. "I'm washing this stuff I'm not supposed to mention off your dress," he said. "Before you upchuck again."

  Sunny's breast tips crinkled against the front of her dress, and she swatted at him again. "Quit it! I'll . . . I'll do it. Give me the cloth!"

  "Sure, and have you pass out on me," Jake said, pushing her hand down into her lap. "I'm almost done, except for this little bit right here. You must have had your finger in your mouth."

  Sunny's mouth dropped open when he shifted the dishtowel and wiped at the corner of her lips. His arm skimmed her breast, and a queer little shiver ran down through her stomach, centering in the exact spot where her bottom pressed against the chair seat. Her eyes widened and her mouth rounded, her breath catching in her throat and her gaze unerringly drifting to the whiskey depths so near her own face.

  Jake's fingers froze, and his gaze locked with hers. The color in his eyes deepened to a dark walnut, and she caught the scent of coffee as his breath feathered across her face, mixing with her whoosh of released air. Feeling as paralyzed as a rabbit caught in a corner of a cage as a snake slithered closer and closer, she watched his tongue flick out and run across his bottom lip.

  It didn't look like a snake's tongue. Instead, she found herself wondering which was softer — his tongue or the lip it caressed. Powerless to resist the urge, she imitated his action, only she traced her tongue across her upper lip.

  "Damn!" Jake backed away from her, rubbing against his forearm, where it had come in contact with her breast. For some reason, his action accelerated the dwindling sensation in her bottom again. She shifted, as though trying to scratch the itch the sensation fostered.

  "Quit that, damn it!" Jake growled.

  "Huh?" Her head snapped up, and Sunny cried out in pain when her teeth inadvertently clamped the edge of her tongue. "Ouch!" Her fingers flew up to probe her stinging tongue and her focus moved to the other end of her body. When Jake reached out toward her, she heartily slapped his hand aside.

  "Get away from me! If you don't leave me alone, I'll end up a mass of bruises from one end to the other!"

  Jake withdrew and stared at her skeptically. "I fail to see how you can blame me for your various injuries. I wasn't even here when you cut your finger, and you managed to get that knock on your head and bite on your tongue completely by yourself. Hell, all I've been trying to do ever since I got here is get you fixed up. As far as what else just happened . . ."

  Sunny bounded from the chair. "Nothing else just happened! And nothing else will happen if you'll get out of here!" She pointed emphatically toward the door. "Go! Now!"

  Jake ambled over to the table and sat down, pulling his coffee cup back from the edge. "Well, now," he drawled. "Since this is Ruth's place, not yours, I guess she'd have to be the one to order me to leave. And I think I'll just sit here for a minute and try to figure out which one of those statements you just made is true. And which one's not."

  "Which . . . what . . . you're not making sense," Sunny sputtered. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

  "Don't seem to know what you're talking about yourself," Jake mused. "At first you say nothing happened. But then you say nothing else will happen. Sure is an enigma, how nothing else can happen if nothing happened at first. Now . . ."

  "Ohhhhh!" Realizing she still held the cloth over one eye, Sunny flung it into the sink. When she peered back at him, she couldn't see him one iota better. Reaching tentative fingers up, she gingerly touched the swelling over her right eye, finding herself barely able to slit it open.

  That did it. Her finger throbbed, her tongue burned, and her eye was swelled and probably so discolored she wouldn't be able to show her face for days on end. She could imagine the pitying looks from the women she had anticipated meeting at church the next day when she tried to explain what had happened.

  "They'll probably believe I hit my head on my knee about as much as they'd believe I'd run into a door in the dark," she muttered aloud. "Just like they believe any other woman who tries to cover up that she's been hit by a fist."

  "Now, wait a minute," Jake said as he got to his feet. "Nobody hit you with their fist. You can't be thinking of . . ."

  "What I'm thinking of is none of your business!" Peering cautiously ahead of her, Sunny stiffened her back and headed for the kitchen doorway. "I'm going home, before I end up flat on my back over at the doctor's office with more than a gashed finger, a black and blue eye and a sore tongue!"

  "Your sore tongue appears to be working fine at least."

  She heard him start after her, but she managed to slip out the door and head down the stairwell. His steps paused at the top of the stairs, and she bunched her skirt higher, hanging onto the railing with her other hand to assure she didn't make a further fool of herself by tripping and tumbling. At the bottom of the steps, she didn't even glance back. As fast as she cautiously could, she ran onto the walkway and turned toward Cassie's house.

  It wasn't until she was almost home that she realized she'd left Teddy at the store with Ruth. With a groan of dismay, she halted in her tracks. Turning, she was able to make out the tall figure standing on the walkway in front of the store. She'd have to pass him to get to Teddy.

  Well, Teddy knew the way home. Surely she'd return when Sunny didn't come for her. But recalling her promise to Teddy to help her pick out some additional clothing, she knew she had to go back. Still, she stared at the store for a long moment before she forced her le
gs to move.

  After a few steps, she saw Jake step down from the walkway and head for the jailhouse, across the street. Breathing a sigh of relief, she hurried onward. Just as she reached the store, the door flew open and Ruth came out.

  "Jake!" Ruth called across the street. Glancing that way, Sunny saw the ranger had reclaimed what Sunny was coming to believe was his favorite spot — the tilted chair beside the railing, with his boots resting on the cross post.

  "Jake," Ruth called again. "Where's Sunny? She and I need to talk to you. Or did she already ask you?"

  ***

  Chapter 6

  As she picked through the bolts of cloth on a shelf, Sunny resolutely ignored Jake, who was sipping another cup of coffee at Ruth's counter. After choosing three cottony materials, she laid them on the cutting table, murmuring to Ruth to measure off the appropriate lengths for dresses for Teddy. Then she moved over to a rack of several ready-made dresses.

  "Evaline makes up a few dresses now and then for sale," Ruth explained as Sunny perused the other selection. "Most of the women still make their own children's clothing themselves, but sometimes there's a call for something in a hurry. I think you'll find that blue one, and maybe the pink one, of a size to fit Teddy."

  Sunny added the blue and pink dresses to the bolts of material. "I may ask Evaline to make up a couple of Teddy's dresses, although I'll have Teddy help me with one herself," she told Ruth. "Teddy needs to know how to sew. But Evaline does nice work, and although I'm no slouch with a needle, sewing's not one of my favorite chores."

  "Evaline will be glad to get the business. Now, how much of this one do you want?"

  Sunny stared at the fourth bolt of material Ruth was rolling out on the cutting table. She recalled looking at it, surprised at finding such a fine example of silk in Ruth's store. The delicate blue shade had an almost watery tinge to it, but it was not a material to wear in this town. It would be much more appropriate for the opera house back in St. Louis. She didn't remember placing that material on the cutting table, however.

  "Ah . . . well . . ."

  "I assume you want this for yourself, since it's not the type of stuff for a child's dress," Ruth went on, draping several yards of the material to the side and picking up her scissors. "This should be about the right amount."

  Before Sunny could protest, she snipped down the material and began folding it, then added it to the other pile. With a sigh of resignation, Sunny turned away to skim the store for Teddy. She found her standing before a shelf of dolls with porcelain faces, a look of awe on her face.

  "Teddy," she said to get her attention. "We need to choose a few other things for you."

  Teddy reluctantly walked away from the shelf, and they spent the next fifteen minutes or so selecting underclothing and several pairs of stockings. Her vision had adjusted to her one-eyed gaze somewhat, but Sunny noticed at times she would reach for something only to find it an inch or so to the side of where her fingers fell. When she got back to the house, she intended to put cold cloth after cold cloth on her eye until the swelling receded.

  She finally couldn't put off approaching the counter to pay for her selections any longer. She concentrated on Ruth's chatter as she totalled the purchases, until she heard a gasp from Teddy. Turning, she saw Teddy holding one of the dolls, a delighted grin on her face.

  "Thank you, thank you, thank you, Ranger Jake," Teddy chanted. "I ain't . . . I never had a doll before. She's sooooo pretty!"

  "I chose that one because its face reminds me of you," Jake said. "See? She's got blue eyes and blond hair, just like yours."

  "Oh, but I'm not that pretty, Ranger Jake," Teddy said with a giggle. "She looks more like Miss Sunny."

  Jake glanced over at her, and Sunny felt every inch of the slow scan he made of her body. When he finally dropped his gaze to the doll again, she released a breath she hadn't even realized she was holding.

  "Could be," she heard Jake murmur to Teddy. "Let's say she looks like both of you. And you know what?"

  "What?" Teddy asked eagerly.

  "You can make some dresses for your doll from the material left over from you own dresses, if you ask Evaline to save the scraps for you."

  "Oh! Then we'd be twins." Teddy nodded her head earnestly, a few tendrils of hair escaping from the pigtails Sunny had braided that morning. "I thought it was just gonna be work to learn how to sew, like Miss Sunny said she was gonna teach me to do. But if I can learn how to make dresses for my dolly, too, then it won't be so bad."

  Jake slipped Sunny a wink, which went unnoticed by either Ruth or Teddy but which zapped through Sunny with a startling intensity. She caught herself wondering how Jake could know just what to say to get Teddy enthusiastic about learning a new task, rather than the disinterest she had experienced herself when she mentioned sewing to Teddy. He appeared to have plenty of practice with children.

  Heavens, was he perhaps married himself? She hadn't seen any sign of a wife, or children for that matter. Possibly, though, he had a family to get back to somewhere. After all, from what she knew about the Texas Rangers, they were a mobile unit of trained men, sent to various areas of trouble in the state. And Ruth had said something about Jake coming to town and running out an outlaw element. Could he just be biding time until he was released from this assignment and sent elsewhere? Or maybe went back to his family?

  If he had a wife waiting somewhere, she darned sure had no business getting all flustered and shaky whenever she got within two feet of him! She'd definitely keep her distance from now on.

  "So," Ruth said, drawing her attention. "Fred's about done unpacking the supplies in the storage room, and I have a little free time now. I could take Teddy over to Evaline's, which would free you and Jake to talk to Ginny."

  "Uh . . . Ginny? I'm sorry, Ruth. You lost me somewhere."

  "Well, we didn't get to finish our discussion a while ago," Ruth said. "But I've been thinking about it, and we'll need a meeting place. Also, somewhere to put on some performances, if we can talk people into coming to our out-of-the-way little town. I've got several ideas, Sunny. Why, I've heard that Dallas has no dearth of performers for their Cultural Center, and I've got a friend I correspond with there. I can get the tour schedules from her, and with the right incentive, I'll bet we can get some of them to stop off here before they travel on to Denver or other points west."

  "What the devil are you talking about, Ruth?" Jake asked. His voice came from right beside her, and Sunny hurriedly took a step away from the counter. "And what's Ginny got to do with this?"

  "She's got the only empty building in town," Ruth said in exasperation. "Haven't you been listening to me? And Sunny will need someone to escort her over to talk to Ginny. I mean, it's not as if Sunny would have to go into a place like Saul Cravens', but I'd feel better if you went with her to Ginny's."

  "What sort of business does Ginny run?" Sunny asked with no little trepidation.

  "Oh, it's a saloon, too, like that Cravens man has," Ruth said. "But not like it that much, either."

  "A saloon?" Sunny asked with unfeigned interest. "You mean, with drinks and gambling and women who . . ." Remembering Teddy, she glanced around to see where she was, finding her sitting at the other end of the counter trying to braid the doll's hair. She lowered her voice, her curiosity about actually getting to see the inside of a saloon making her forget Jake beside her. "And women who . . . uh . . . cater to men?"

  Jake's laughter rumbled in his chest, and her cheeks flushed. However, she resolutely ignored him once more.

  "Ginny's girls don't do that," Ruth denied stoutly. "At least, not since her father got killed in the shootout with that cheating card shark last year and Ginny took over. She has to sell drinks and allow gambling, in order to pay her bills, but her place is more of a . . . well, a training school for her girls."

  Ruth emphatically nodded her head, shooting Jake a venomous look when he choked on a garbled laugh. "Not that sort of training, Jake Cameron, and you're well aw
are of it! But yes, that's more what I'd call it. Ginny teaches her girls to do bookkeeping and ordering. And she's got a couple of women who have very nice voices, who I bet we could talk into singing for us."

  Jake snorted, and Sunny added her own deadly glare to Ruth's.

  "Just what's so darned funny about this, Jake?" Ruth demanded.

  "Sorry," he replied around a strong hint of laughter. "It's just that I can't imagine any of the various women in Liberty Flats dressing up in their finery and heading over to hear one of Ginny's girls sing a tune."

  "You obviously don't know how important it is for women to have some culture in their lives," Sunny spat. "If I remember right, you don't even think there's any problem with women having to drag their skirts through animal droppings to cross the street!"

  Her voice rose in pitch, as she felt her resentment at his attitude deepen. She'd darn well show this man how absolutely wrong he was. She'd darn well show him that women had rights, instead of being delegated to the status of second-class citizens, whose opinions didn't matter and who couldn't even vote.

  "And since I'm responsible for Teddy's upbringing now," she continued, "I feel it's my duty to see that she's exposed to something more than training to be some man's servant."

  "Most men consider women helpmates . . ." Jake tried to interrupt, but she waved a hand to silence him.

  "Tell me more about the women who work with Ginny, Ruth. Would any of them perhaps have any other musical training? I would love to have Teddy take piano lessons, but Aunt Cassie's piano is totally out of tune."

  "I believe Perry, Ginny's bartender, keeps her piano in tune," Ruth replied. "At least, I seem to remember Ginny mentioning how nice it was that she'd discovered Perry's other talents after she hired him, when her other bartender married one of her girls and left a few months ago. I . . . um . . . don't know what Cassie would say, though, about Perry coming to her house, even to tune a piano."

  "I'll worry about that later," Sunny replied. "Right now, I'd really like to go meet Ginny. Thanks so much for offering to care for Teddy while I'm gone. I'm sure your selections for dress styles for Teddy will be just fine."