Chapter Five

      “Why, sure, George can pay me later for the glassware,” Mrs. Patterson replied. “His mama would never speak to me again if I didn’t give him credit. How about you, Ella? Don’t you need some new plates and glasses? I heard that medicine-show man broke everything in your café, as well as the saloon.”

      “Mrs. Gilmore was kind enough to give me some extra, thanks,” Ella said, and waved at her friend Kate, the proprietress’s niece, who was dusting shelves.

      Mrs. Patterson lifted a crate of glasses and placed them on the counter. “A saloon never lacks for business, even if we Christian folk wish people wouldn’t spend their money on what they buy there,” she said. “You take care, Ella. You’re a hardworking girl.”

      Ella thanked her again and picked up the crate, nodding at Kate, who held the door for her. But she had walked only a few feet down the boardwalk when her way was blocked by the rotund form of Mrs. Powell, the cook from the hotel restaurant.

      Ella’s former boss narrowed her already beady eyes, making her cheeks look even fleshier than before. “Humph. It’s gonna take a whole lot more than some new glasses to get that saloon runnin’ again, and your café, too, from what I hear. You’ll be back whinin’ for your job any minute now, won’t you, Ella?”

      “Nope.” She wouldn’t go back to this woman’s bullying if it was the last job in Texas. Mrs. Powell had made Ella’s life miserable, and it had given Ella the impetus to start her own establishment sooner than it had probably been wise.

      “Well, it’s too late if you was to come beggin’,” Mrs. Powell cackled. “That Trudy came and pleaded for a job, and I already have Daisy Henderson, too. I wouldn’t hire you back anyway, the way you left us high and dry, with the clerk having to do double duty waiting on tables and registering hotel guests.”

      Ella couldn’t imagine the lazy, free-and-easy Trudy in a gray waitress uniform, putting up with the cook’s rantings. She wouldn’t last till the end of the week, especially after she saw the saloon was back in business.

      She tamped down her temper with difficulty. “The saloon and my café will be back open tomorrow. Now, if you don’t mind, this crate is heavy and I have to get back there.”

      She had the satisfaction of seeing the woman’s jaw drop, and knew she was wondering how reopening tomorrow would be possible.

      “You’re dreamin’—”

      “I’ll help you carry that crate, Miss Ella,” interrupted a voice from the street.

      She looked away from her tormentor to see Bohannan crossing toward her, reaching out for the crate.

      “Why, thank you,” Ella murmured, but she made sure her voice was brisk and businesslike. She hoped to get away from Mrs. Powell before the woman realized who Bohannan was. Ella wasn’t sure if the cook had been among the throng flocking to the Cherokee Marvelous Medicine Show yesterday, but if she had been, Ella didn’t want Mrs. Powell to figure out the man who had helped Salali fleece the townspeople of their money was the same one helping Detwiler now. The woman loved to gossip more than she loved to breathe, and if her tongue got going, it might slash Detwiler—and her—to ribbons.

      Mrs. Powell’s eyes narrowed again as Bohannan took the crate from Ella. “Say, ain’t you the—”

      Nate favored the cook with a quick, dazzling smile. “Good day, ma’am.”

      Together, they crossed the street to the saloon, with Ella sensing that Mrs. Powell still stared suspiciously at their backs. She knew she should be grateful that Bohannan had rescued her just now—the man had a positive habit of coming to the rescue, didn’t he? Instead, she said, “I thought you were supposed to be tuning the piano.”

      Bohannan gave her a sideways glance. “I guess you’re not going to thank me for interrupting that dragon’s tirade,” he said, “but after George left with the wagon for San Saba, I realized he hadn’t told me just where in his office he kept the tuning tools. And I didn’t feel right about rummaging in there without him or you present. After all, both of you just met me yesterday, and a lot’s happened since then.”

      How did he do that? Ella wondered. How did he have a knack for bringing another person’s fears out in the open like that so that the other person felt faintly foolish for having them? He was right—if she’d arrived back at the saloon and found Bohannan rifling through Detwiler’s desk in his upper-story office, she’d have been suspicious all over again.

      By now Bohannan was backing his way through the saloon’s batwing doors, carrying the crate, with Ella following.

      “All right, we’ll go up to Detwiler’s office and I’ll stand there while you look for them,” she said grudgingly. “Do you know what you’re looking for?” She’d never seen a piano tuned, and had no idea what tools he needed.

      Bohannan set the crate down at the foot of the stairs. “Sure. I’m hoping he has a tuning fork, a tuning hammer and mutes, at the minimum,” he said, climbing the stairs alongside her. “What I furnish is this,” he added, tapping his ear.

      They reached the top of the stairs. The first room was Detwiler’s office, and the two rooms at the other end of the hall were the ones Dolly and Trudy used. The room across the hall from the office was a spare room with a cot, and here was where Bohannan would sleep. How convenient—right across from the room where George Detwiler’s safe resided. She’d have to warn the saloonkeeper to start taking his profits home with him at night, for Nate Bohannan might number safecracking among his many skills.

      Bohannan paused right outside the office and was looking thoughtfully at her.

      “Go ahead,” she urged, pointing at the open room, wondering what he was thinking.

      “Miss Ella, I’m aware you don’t like me,” Nate Bohannan said.

      She blinked, astonished that he was exposing this feeling of hers, too. She was not going to allow him to make her feel guilty for being wary of him. Only a fool wouldn’t be.

      “It’s not that I don’t like you, Mr. Bohannan,” she retorted crisply. “I don’t trust you. Not any farther than I could throw you.”

      “Yet George Detwiler does,” he pointed out.

      She gave a mirthless laugh. “So it’s up to me to stay on my guard, since Mr. Detwiler trusts way too soon.”

      “What is he to you, anyway?” he asked. “You don’t call him uncle, or Pa—he’s not your beau, is he?”

      The idea of George Detwiler being anyone’s beau, let alone hers, was so laughable she almost forgot how audacious the question was, coming from this relative stranger.

      “You have a lot of nerve, Mr. Bohannan. What business is that of yours?”

      Speaking of nerve, she thought, the intensity in those blue eyes was decidedly unnerving. She was suddenly aware she was alone in the building with a man she’d just admitted she didn’t trust.

      He shrugged. “Just wondering, Miss Ella. Since we’re going to be working in the same place, more or less, I just thought I’d ask. I like to know what’s what.”

      If the circumstances had been different, she’d have reiterated that it was none of his business and flounced off, but she knew she had a responsibility to Detwiler to watch Bohannan search his office.

      She extended her arm, pointing at the office. “Fetch what you need to get in there, Mr. Bohannan, and do it quickly. I have other things to do.”

      * * *

      By the time Ella left Bohannan tuning the piano and returned to the boardinghouse, it was already almost suppertime.