Annabelle grabbed a shirt and started working. “I said a lot of things I didn’t mean. I couldn’t imagine that Henry would simply leave without me. Not when he knew I’d just lost Peter and Susannah and Mother was so sick.”
Pouring out her heart seemed almost easier when she had her hands occupied. She turned her attention to a spot that wouldn’t come out. “I was wrong to accuse you of being anything but a friend. I’m sorry.”
“You’re going to tear a hole in it.” Polly’s voice interrupted her thoughts, and she stared down at the shirt.
“I can’t get this spot out,” she said, holding it up for inspection.
“It’ll do.” Polly took the shirt out of her hands and stalked over to where she had the other clean shirts drying.
Annabelle sighed and brushed the stray curls off her face. An apology would never be enough to mend the damage she’d done.
Polly turned and stared at her. “You barely knew Henry. Sure, he was handsome and charming and helped you deliver things to your father’s parishioners. But we’d known each other our whole lives. And you’d call me a liar before you’d believe that your precious Henry would betray you.”
Annabelle deserved every bit of the ire directed at her. Probably even more than that. “I was wrong,” she said again, but Polly had returned to her work.
“What next?” she called over her shoulder at Polly.
“Go find my ma and tell her to put you to work elsewhere. You’re slowing me down. I’ll never get all this done with you around.” Polly gestured to the pile of laundry.
“I’m sorry. If there’s anything I can do...” She looked for any sign of understanding in her former friend, but Polly merely frowned at her.
“Just go.”
The camp was quiet as Annabelle returned to Gertie’s cabin. Everyone was probably up working in the mines. With such good weather, they were probably trying to get as much extra work done as they could.
“Hey, pretty lady.” An obviously drunken miner stumbled out of a tent. Disheveled, and smelling more like liquor than the mines, he reached for her with hands knotted with age. An old-timer, most likely. But who could tell with the way this place prematurely aged people.
She turned to go between the tents, but another miner stepped from behind the tent she was trying to go around. Younger, the sandy-haired man also reeked of drink.
“What’s your hurry?”
Her father hadn’t given her a gun to replace the one that had been in her saddlebag. Which would be a problem living in the camp. She’d gotten proficient at scaring men off with a quick wave of the pistol.
“I need to get back to my friend’s cabin. She’s expecting me.”
The men moved closer, sandwiching her in. “We can’t have no delay, now can we?”
Even with considerable distance between them, she could smell the younger man’s foul breath. She looked for an escape route.
“Aw, pretty birdie wants to fly the coop,” the man in front of her said with the kind of leer that spelled trouble.
This was precisely why young ladies did not venture beyond certain boundaries unescorted.
Her momentary lapse in looking for an escape gave the man behind her the opportunity to bump into her, pushing her closer to his friend. He might have looked like an old-timer, but he was quick.
“We don’t mean no harm,” he whispered, his foul odor stinging her nostrils. “Just tell us where the silver is.”
Naturally. That’s all anyone in this crazy place wanted.
“I don’t know anything about any silver,” she said stiffly, realizing that a hard object was pressed into her back. A gun.
She tried to take a deep breath to calm herself, but the gun pressed deeper into her back.
“What’d you find at the cabin?” the man rasped into her ear and pushed her forward into his friend.
“Nothing. It was just a cabin.” She tried to keep her voice steady, calm. These were no ordinary ruffians, but dangerous men who clearly knew much more about her activities than mere happenstance.
The man in front of her grinned an ugly toothless grin as he rubbed his stubbled chin. “And silver is just a rock.”
As his eyes narrowed, she recognized him as one of the men who frequented her father’s Wednesday night dinners.
“I know you.” She stared at him harder, trying to remember if she knew his name. There were just so many, coming and going, and with trying to stay unattached...
“Our family has done you great kindness. Please repay that kindness and let me go.”
Her words only made the man’s sneer deepen. Perhaps it had been the wrong thing, to ask for repayment for what they’d done.
“We’ll give you kindness, sweet lady.” The man behind her rubbed up against her in a vulgar motion that sent her stomach rolling. “You tell us where the silver is, and we won’t share you with our friends.”
Annabelle gritted her teeth. “I told you, I don’t know about any silver. I was merely showing Joseph where his father’s cabin was so that he could claim his father’s personal effects.”
Toothless gave her a murderous look. “We seen him in the mercantile yesterday buying mining supplies with the good preacher. So no more lies. Where’s the silver?”
She glared at him and tried to shake free of his friend, but the man pressed the gun harder into her back.
“If he had really found any silver, do you think that cabin would have been as desolate as we found it? Don’t you think he would have spent some of it on something nice for his daughter? You know miners. There’s no silver.”
Her words seemed to catch the miner who held the gun to her back off-guard because the pressure loosened and he hesitated.
“You think she’s telling the truth?” The waver in his voice was all she needed.
In a quick motion, Annabelle stomped back, using the heel of her boot to dig into
