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Seeing Vera’s confusion, Eddy explained, “I promised him some of the marmalade to thank him for saving me in the desert.”
Sylvia groused mockingly, “Why do I have to share mine when he has his own cook? I’m sure Jim Dade is perfectly able to make Rhine his own marmalade.”
Vera waded in around a bite of a marmalade-laden biscuit, “I agree.”
“Now, now ladies. Let’s not be greedy and uncharitable. I’ll make you more. Promise.”
Sylvia folded her arms and huffed like a small child. “Okay. I’m holding you to that, Eddy.”
Eddy truly enjoyed Sylvia and her antics. “I’ll be back shortly. I’ll stop by Lady Ruby’s and get eggs while I’m out, too. And don’t eat all the marmalade while I’m gone.”
No promises were made.
Walking down the crowded street, it was her hope that Rhine Fontaine would accept his boon, say thanks, and let her go on her way, but she doubted the encounter would play out that way. Regardless of the shoots that remained hopeful, she planned to continue keeping him at arm’s length, even as she wondered what it might be like to take him up on his offer for dinner. Candlelight, he said. Eddy had never dined with any man other than her father, but knew there was no comparison. Fontaine would be charmingly bold while she would be all thumbs and nervous as a ewe with a wolf. No, dinner with him wouldn’t be a good idea even though they did need to have another adult-to-adult talk. Yes, there was an attraction to him that was real as the sun in the sky but she didn’t love him and he didn’t love her and that would have to be in the equation if they were actually to become a couple. She didn’t want to be tossed aside as soon as he found a Natalie with more depth. As Sylvia so rightly pointed out, men like Rhine might offer a dalliance but they rarely offered marriage to women like herself.
Knowing that no respectable lady entered a saloon alone or by the front door, she went around to the back door that led to the kitchen and knocked. Jim Dade answered and greeted her with a smile, “Good morning, MissEddy. What can I do for you?”
“I have Rhine’s marmalade. Is he here?”
“No. He’s out collecting rent from his tenants.”
Eddy was relieved, or at least that’s what she told herself. “Will you make sure he gets this, please?” She took the teacup out of the basket and handed it to him.
He opened the top, grazed a finger over the sweet contents and tasted it. “This is excellent. Whether there’ll be anything in the cup when he returns is another story. Can you show me how this I made?”
“I can, if only to keep Sylvia from sulking over having to share.”
He chuckled. “We can’t have MissSylvie sulking, now can we. Let me know when you have some time.”
“I will. Thanks, Jim.”
“You’re welcome lovely lady. I owe you an angel food cake recipe. Haven’t forgotten.”
“Good.”
“How’s the auction going?”
“Going well. I hope you’ll take me up on donating the cake.” The event was less than a week away.
“I think I will.”
“I’ll be bidding.”
He nodded, and Eddy set out for Lady Ruby’s Silver Palace to buy eggs.
It wasn’t very far away. According to Sylvia, the place started life as a mansion built by one of the mine owners back the in sixties. When his stock sank and left him broke, he moved his family to San Francisco and abandoned the home. How Ruby came to be in possession, Eddy didn’t know.
The interior was quiet. A few of the girls looked bleary-eyed as they ate breakfast and nodded a greeting. Every time she entered she thought about her sister Corinne and her nieces. Eddy had written her a few weeks ago to let her know where she was staying, even though Corinne probably didn’t care.
On the far side of the room, a man with sandy-colored hair was seated with his face down on one of the tables. She assumed he was sleeping off last night’s revelry.
Lady Ruby was behind the long wooden bar. Her shoulder length red wig was slightly askew and she was wearing a voluminous silver wrapper on her tall large-boned frame. She was also sporting enough silver jewelry on her wrists and fingers to be officially declared a mine.
“Good morning, Eddy,” she said in her lilting West Indian accent.
“Good morning, Lady Ruby.”
“You are entirely too gorgeous for this early in the morning. You here for eggs?”
