sarsaparilla. It bubbled up into fizz when it hit the ice, and she was giggling out loud, which started Abigail, then Megan, who laughed out loud as well.
Abigail lifted her glass. “To old friends,” she said.
Jenny and Megan followed suit, then clinked all three glasses together and drank.
Until her dying day, Jenny would swear that was the best sarsaparilla she ever drank.
“What the hell’s goin’ on out here? A hen party?” asked a new voice, male and jovial, but pretending to be cross.
Both Jenny and Megan twisted in their chairs to see the speaker. He was coming out of the mouth of the hall behind him, all clanking spurs and hip pistols and worn blue jeans and nothing up top except his long johns. And his hat, of course. Jenny didn’t understand why in the West, nobody took off his hat, not even to greet a lady. Not even in church. Her brother aside, just a touch of the brim was the most she’d seen since they left Kansas!
But this man—whom Jenny liked already, just on general principle—not only took his hat clear off, but bowed to the table! Then he swept his hat wide, and said, “Good morning, ladies! I trust everyone came through the night in one piece?”
While the girls tittered, he looked at Abigail, raised his brows, indicating the empty chair at the table, and asked, “May I?”
“Certainly,” she said. She was on the edge of laughter, herself.
The man sat down—right next to Jenny, who nearly fainted. He was tall—as tall as Jason, over six feet—had wavy, sandy hair, and it was cut fairly short. His eyes were blue, but not regular blue, like hers, nor sky blue, like Jason’s. They were a deep, deep blue, as blue as she imagined the ocean would be if you swam down so far that your lungs were ready to burst. And he was, well, gorgeous, if you could call a man that.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” said the vision sitting beside her. “My name is Lynch, Rafe Lynch, and I’d appreciate it if you’d call me Rafe.”
Jenny stuttered, “Hello, Rafe. I’m Jenny Fury.”
“Like the town!” He smiled wide. “Coincidence?”
She barely had her mouth open when she heard Megan say, across her, “Her father was the wagon master who started us West and her brother is our marshal, and I’m Megan MacDonald and my brother owns the bank.”
Megan ran out of air, and Jenny just said, “Yes. What Megan said, I mean.” She felt herself flush hotly and took a quick sip of her soda pop.
It was Abigail who saved her. She reached over and put a hand on Rafe’s arm. “Can I get you somethin’, honey?”
Rafe picked a little chunk of ice out of the bowl and ran it over his forehead. “A beer, if you wouldn’t mind, Abby.”
She said, “No problem at all,” and stood up. Before she left, though, she said, “Rafe, honey, why don’t you tell the girls, here, how you just beat the dust storm to town? I swan, I would’a been scared to death!”
He grinned. “Don’t take much to scare you, does it, Abby?”
She laughed and he just kept grinning, even as he turned back toward the girls. “How old are you two? Unless it’s uncalled for to ask, I mean.”
Megan said, a little too proudly, “I’m twenty-one. Jenny, here, is only nineteen.”
Oh, terrific. Now she was marked as the baby of the group. She was going to have a word or two with Megan later. That was for sure! As calmly as she could, she said, “But I’ll be twenty come June.”
There. That was better.
“And your brother’s the famous Jason Fury I been hearin’ so much about?”
Jenny had never heard that he was famous, but she said, “Yes, I guess so. But he’s just my brother.”
Rafe Lynch ran the last of his ice over his forehead again, then popped it into his mouth. He pointed an index finger at Jenny and said, “You’re funny. Why, I heard about him back in California! Somethin’ about a couple’a Indian attacks. And yeah, somethin’ else . . .” He smiled and thumped his temple. “It’s gone right outta my head for the time bein’.”
Abigail was back, and slid his beer across the table before she sat down again. “You tell ’em yet how you beat the dust storm?”
Jenny wanted to know what the other thing was that he’d heard, but held her tongue while Rafe took the first sip of his beer. Megan, she noticed, was leaning forward eagerly. Way too eagerly for somebody who was supposed to be soft on her brother, Jason, she thought. That was something else she was going to have to talk to Meg about later on.
Rafe started talking about the storm, how he saw it coming on the horizon and nearly stopped. But then he saw signs of Apache far to the south, and hightailed it. . . .
Jenny listened as raptly as Megan. He was so handsome and charming, and had little lines that fanned out from the corners of his deep blue eyes when he smiled or laughed. Even his name was wonderful. She’d never known anyone called Rafe before.
She was smitten.
Over in California, near the Pacific coast and the upstart town of Los Angeles, Ezra Welk sat at the back of his room at Maria’s place, listening to the morning birds singing over the desert while he smoked a cigar. He was a tall man, although he preferred to think of himself as compact, and studied the ash on the end of his cigar before he rolled if off on the edge of the sole of his boot. He was alone in the room, and had been ever since seven, when the little spitfire he’d spent the night with had left. Her name had been Merlina, he thought. Hell. She was probably servicing some caballero downstairs right now, behind the backbar.
That’s where he’d found her, anyway. Quite the little bucking bronca, that gal.
He hoped her next “rider” was as satisfied as he was. He rolled the ash off the end of his cigar, in the ashtray
