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“Damn,” I muttered.
Speak of the devil, and he will appear.
Feeling an odd, sick sensation, I fixed my stare with the demon wearing the silver star badge standing across the street. I gave him a cool nod in greeting, turned and quickly disappeared into the store.
* * *
“How much did you get in trade from Frank today?” Alice asked as she forked her boiled potato chunk.
We were all having a late afternoon supper before Bryant and I headed back up the mountain. The last two hours I had been distracted with the memory of my fretful encounter with Ruby. Most of the dinner conversation had sieved through my mind, and I had been distractedly pushing the food around my plate for the last ten minutes.
“Nothing,” Bryant muttered as he tore apart his bread slice.
“I told you, didn’t I?” she remarked with shaking head.
“You did. Now drop it.”
It took a moment for his words to fully register, and I frowned at Bryant. “Wait, you didn’t anything at the trading post today? But you had all that beautiful beadwork from Dove-caller, and I thought you said that a black bear hide would bring in prime coin?”
“Yes, Michael,” Alice retorted. “Tell her why Frank Hodges wouldn’t do business with you today. Or won’t anytime in the near future.”
“Leave it alone, Alice,” he said to her with a warning glare.
“She has a right to know the trouble she’s causing you.”
Me? What did I do now?
“Alice,” he grumbled. “Just stop.”
Instantly my back went up, searching both their hostile expressions at each other.
“Bryant, what is she talking about?” I questioned. “What trouble?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry yourself,” he said.
I looked to Henry who shrugged. Alice shot him a sharp look that made him pink-over and focus back onto his dinner plate.
“Okay, what’s going on?” I questioned, setting my folk down. “And don’t say nothing, because obviously there’s something. What is it?”
Bryant refused to look at me. It was Alice who finally clued me in on the latest gossip flooding the town.
“It’s you two living together up in his cabin,” she said with her own disapproving sniff. “Unwed.”
That took me off guard, because I had expected something else entirely. Henry had confidentially admitted that according to his friend, Tyler Anders, there were rumors about me being some sort of witch and spellcaster.
After some poking and prodding, I finally pieced together that many of those blatant fabrications had originated by our friendly neighborhood sheriff. No doubt to ruin my reputation in revenge for the shellacking Bryant had given him on my behalf.
So now the gossip about me had escalated to being an immoral woman who would live with a man without the benefits of marriage. Personally, I wouldn’t have cared an iota—these small minded, nineteenth century people could believe the worst of me, since I didn’t plan to be around here in another few months anyhow—but now it was affecting Bryant himself.
“It’s not like that between us,” I protested.
“Doesn’t matter what it is or isn’t,” Alice said. “Truth of the matter is that you staying with Michael alone at his cabin—”
“Alice, don’t,” he cut in.
“She has a right to know,” she insisted, setting her own fork down with a bang. “It’s bad enough that you both are living in sin in people’s eyes around here. But since she’s gotten on the bad side of Sheriff Wilkens, no one will ever cross him to do business with you.”
And there we had it.
