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Ellie caught Leah’s eye and leaned sideways toward her. “Leah,” she said in an undertone, “you must come to the meeting. You must. The whole town is taking sides.”
“Meeting!” Thad shouted at supper that night. “More likely a tar-and-feather party. Carl Ness ought to be behind bars.”
“Who’s gonna get tar and feathers, Pa?”
“They’re gunning for Uncle Charlie, son.”
Teddy’s brow wrinkled. “What’s he done?”
“Nothing,” Leah and Thad said in unison. “Eat your supper, Teddy.”
“But I wanna know about the meeting.”
“So do we, son.” Thad pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. “I’m going on into town early, Leah.”
“But Thad…”
“I’ve got to go,” he said, his voice quiet. “You know that sometimes people can get some crazy notions.” He touched her shoulder. “I’ve got to keep Charlie safe.”
She met her husband’s steady gaze; the determined look on his face sent a shiver of fear up her backbone.
“Be careful.”
He reached for her, pulled her out of the dining chair and folded her into his arms. “You are one sensible woman, Leah.”
She struggled to steady her breathing. “I am a sensible woman who cares about you.”
To her surprise, he kissed her thoroughly. His firm lips, and the scratch of his afternoon whiskers, warmed a hollow ache below her belly. When he lifted his head, he looked at her so long she wondered if she had flour on her nose.
In the next moment he was out the front door, and she heard his boots thud down the porch steps.
“Wish Pa’d taken me with him. We were s’posed to go fishin’, but I guess he forgot.”
“He could not take you with him, Teddy. Your father wants you to be safe tonight. With me,” she added.
“Oh. Okay. I guess it’s not so bad, bein’ with you, Leah.”
Not so bad? Was that acceptance she heard in the boy’s words? Even approval?
Before dark fell, Leah washed up the dishes and Teddy dried them; then they walked out to the barn and he helped her saddle Lady. When she had mounted, Teddy scrambled up in front of her. She did not want Thad’s son more than an arm’s length away from her at the town meeting tonight.
“Golly, Leah. I’ve never seen tar ’n’ feathers on anybody.”
“Hush, Teddy. You do not want to see such a thing.”
In the hour it took to reach town she thought about the look on Thad’s face after he’d kissed her. Oh, how she hungered for more of Thad. Much, much more.
She also thought about the ugly situation that awaited them. Her husband was courageous, even gallant, to volunteer to keep Uncle Charlie safe. She knew that Thad had stood up for her in the past, and that it had cost him bloody knuckles and bruised ribs.
She could not help thinking that Verena Forester would never need such protection. No doubt Verena had never, ever felt she was an outsider.
A confrontation at the town meeting would drive Thad even further away from her. Was she costing Thad more than he was willing to pay?
She bit her lip until she tasted blood.
Chapter Nineteen
The town meeting was held in the large room in back of the barber shop. When Leah and Teddy walked inside, the noise was so deafening Teddy clapped both hands over his ears.
Screaming children raced around the perimeter until they were corralled by their parents. Townspeople stood nose to nose, shaking fingers in each other’s angry red faces, until finally Carl Ness divided the crowd into two opposing groups facing each other on opposite sides of the room.
People found seats on whatever they could seize—extra chairs from the barbershop, empty barrels, wooden fruit crates with colorful labels pasted on one end, even cushions tossed down on the plank floor.
Leah shared a splintery apple crate with Teddy. “Golly, the whole town’s here,” he whispered. “Must be a hund’erd people.”
Across the room, people were packed so tight they could scarcely move. Only a few drifted to the side where Leah sat with Teddy—Ellie and Matt Johnson; Jeanne and Colonel Halliday and their daughter, Manette. And—Leah’s eyes widened—hulking, overweight Ike Bruhn.
Ike Bruhn? What was he doing on their side? She thought he hated the Chinese. Thad was just now recuperating from the beating Ike and Whitey Poletti had inflicted last week.
Near Ike sat Sarah Rose, owner of the white clapboard boardinghouse at the edge of town, and Rooney Cloudman, her boarder, along with Harvey Pritchard and his wife, from the Lazy J ranch five miles out of town. And old Mrs. Hinksley, a retired schoolteacher from Portland who boarded with Mrs. Rose with her sister, Iris DuPont. Ike’s fiancée, Cleora Rose, sat across the room among the Nesses and the Polettis and everyone else opposed to Leah’s Chinese uncle’s presence and his bakery.
