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Sawyer grunted. “So eccentricity runs in the family?”
Mia leveled him with a hard look. “Are you saying I resemble that remark?”
His answering laugh was a deep rumble that vibrated in her bones, making her feel like she was on the receiving end of a bear hug. She’d never felt embraced by a sound before, but she decided she liked it, and let herself return his grin as she led the way past the hotel to the town jail.
“The jail was right next door to the saloon, which made it easy to roll the drunk and disorderly out the swinging doors, and into the jail for the night to sleep it off.” Mia turned, walking backward as she motioned to the splintered front walk leading from the hotel to the jail. “Lonesome Point had its share of petty criminal activity, but it also had a thriving women’s suffrage movement. Amelia was a firm supporter of women’s rights, and held suffragette meetings in her office at the hotel. In her journals, she wrote that she believed empowered women fighting for the vote were what gave Lonesome Point the reputation for being the place where the wildest men in the west were tamed.”
Sawyer crossed his thick arms over his chest, stopping in the middle of the dusty street. “Is that right?”
Mia nodded, warming to her story. “Between the years of 1834 and 1850, five of the biggest outlaws of the time met and married women from Lonesome Point. Some settled down to live under aliases on the outskirts of town, avoiding the law. But the most famous couple, Alvis and Ginny Watts, became a husband and wife team. They were con artists who duped prospectors up and down the Rio Grande until they were eventually jailed in Eagle Pass days before their seventh wedding anniversary.”
“Seven year itch.” Sawyer’s eyes narrowed, giving the jail a critical look.
“Not at all,” Mia said. “Ginny escaped her jail cell two days after they were captured, and broke Alvis out the morning before he was set to be hanged. They ran off to Mexico, and were never seen again, but a man claiming to be their son visited Lonesome Point in 1870.”
“That’s a romantic story,” Sawyer said, shooting Mia a look that made her stomach do a slow swan dive and her skin feel vaguely…prickly all over.
“Well, ye-yes, it is,” she said, grateful for the hot sun that gave her an excuse for the blush heating her cheeks. “He brought my great-great-etcetera grandmother a thank you letter from his parents, and the sterling silver, surgical grade amputation set that’s on display in the visitor center museum.”
Sawyer lifted a skeptical brow.
“It was a thoughtful gift.” Mia pulled a curl from her lips that the wind immediately whipped into her eyes. “Very practical for the times. Without antibiotics, sometimes amputation was the only way to prevent septicemia.”
“Sorry, I’m not doubting your story, I was just thinking about the jail.” Sawyer lifted a hand, pointing to the second floor of the structure. “You’ve got a lot of damage to the brickwork, and those look like early Carter Bricks.”
Mia did a double take. “You can tell that from fifty feet away?”
“I know my brick,” he said, managing to make the phrase sound unreasonably sexy.
“I bet you do,” Mia breathed, forcing a smile when Sawyer’s eyes shifted back in her direction. “You’re right. It is all Carter Brick, made during the second or third year the Carter Brick Factory was in business. I’ll have to check the records to be sure, but I know the jail dates back to 1834-35.”
Sawyer shook his head again, a slow back and forth that foretold certain doom. “That’s going to cost you. Carter Bricks from any era are expensive, but bricks from the early years, before they changed the mold in the 1840s, are hard to find. And when you do find them, they fetch their weight in gold.”
Mia winced. “Gram won’t be happy to hear that.” She bit her lip, the partially collapsed second story of the jailhouse suddenly looking more irritatingly decayed and less romantically crumbled. Emily had a sizable budget socked away, but not enough to cover bricks that cost as much as gold bars.
“Is there any way around using actual Carter Bricks?” she asked. “We have a couple of potters in town. If we brought them a sample, they might be able to reproduce the—”
“You need to maintain the integrity of materials if you’re going to get this portion of the town on the historic register along with the first.” Sawyer pulled his phone from his back pocket and tapped the voice memo button. “Carter Bricks for the jailhouse. Circa 1834-35. Estimated two-hundred to three-hundred bricks for full restoration. Number to be updated after inspection.”
Sawyer ended the memo and turned to Mia. “Do you have any idea when I’ll be able to do a walk-through of the buildings? I’ll need to get up close and personal before I write up our bid.”
“We can go in today,” Mia said, refusing to think about how much she’d like to get up close and personal with Sawyer again. The more time she spent with him, the more his sexy, intelligent side began to outweigh his intimidating, I-swagger-on-my-way-to-mount-my-Harley side.
“I have the key to the jail,” she added. “None of the other buildings have been locked for years. My grandmother misplaced most of the keys in a move shortly after her husband died.”
Sawyer dipped his head and tipped the brim of his hat up, meeting Mia’s eyes. “Sounds like the women in your family have a bad habit of losing husbands.”
You have no idea, Mia thought.
“It was a long time ago, Gram’s fine now,” she said, her tone upbeat.
She wasn’t about to tell him that Emily had awoken to find Grandpa Frank dead in their bed the morning after their shotgun wedding, losing her husband on her wedding night just like their ancestor Amelia. She also wouldn’t tell Sawyer that at least three of their ancestors in Ireland had lost their husbands in a similar fashion, or utter a word about her own status as a first-born-daughter. And she absolutely wouldn’t confess that, for a few insane days last summer, she had considered marrying her ex-boyfriend, hoping the Sherman Family Curse would work its dark magic and do away with the man who had made her life an exercise in fear.
Instead, she pulled the key from the back pocket of her jeans and held it up between them. “Shall we go check out the town lock up?”
Sawyer’s hand closed around hers, sending a wave of awareness sizzling through her as he claimed the key. “I think I should go alone. Old buildings can be unpredictable.”
“I’m not afraid,” Mia said.At least not of old buildings.
