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“And I told him I’d file a complaint with the union. He said he’d ruin my career, and I said I’d tell the press. Unfortunately, I was the one who was bluffing.”
“You didn’t tell anyone?”
“Nobody would’ve cared. I could’ve told the tabloids about what I’d seen, and who would it have hurt? Her, maybe. Definitely me. And definitely not him, because he would’ve found some way to prove it wasn’t true. So here I am.”
“You couldn’t get another job?”
“It was complicated. And the word is out that I drink on the job.”
His eyebrows flew up. “Do you?”
“No. Never. I rarely even drink at parties.”
“Only in saloons?” he asked.
She smiled. “Only in saloons.”
“Lucky me.”
“Yeah.” She’d stopped eating, and when her smile faded, she stared at her plate.
“Hey, Grace?”
“What?”
“I’m sorry about that. You being fired by that asshole.”
When she looked up, he saw surprise in her eyes. Just a brief, bright flash, and then it was hidden by old anger. “It’s no big deal. Nothing new. I’ve got to learn how to keep my mouth shut.”
“Maybe not. You did the right thing.”
“Ha. The right thing. It didn’t help her. I probably made it worse. You should have seen her scrambling to defuse the situation. Begging me to stop. It was all about me, wasn’t it? Me telling myself that I’m not the kind of person who’d just stand by while a man treated a woman like a worthless dog. The worst part? Turns out I’m exactly that kind of person.”
“No, you’re not. You said something. You didn’t just sit there and ignore it because you were scared.”
She smiled again. A grimace of a smile, bitter and hurt. And then she jumped to her feet. “Thank you for breakfast. Again.”
“Hey, wait. What are you doing today?”
She was already walking toward the door, her bare feet silent against the wood. She was so much smaller without her heels. “I’ll probably walk around town some more. See what there is to see.”
“Ah. The antlers.”
She stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “The what?”
“The antlers. Haven’t you seen the antler arches yet?”
Her expression defaulted to grumpy again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t know how you missed them. They’re right in the town square.”
“Antlers?”
“Yes. Elk antlers. Thousands of them. The National Elk Refuge comes all the way up to the city limits.”
“And there are elk there?”
“Not right now, but they’re around if you drive up into the mountains. They come down to the refuge during the winter.”
