“What in the world have you done now?” Anders asked.
Jonah came in right behind him. “She bailed me and Bernie out of deep trouble. Jasper too.”
Anders shook his head. “Larkspur Grace Nielsen, do you have any idea what kind of trouble you’re in?”
She stared at him, feeling stronger by the second. “All I did was win at cards.”
“A woman playing poker in a saloon in this town is bad enough.” Anders clamped his jaw. “But you made that man look like a fool. I ran into a fella on my way who was there and was coming to warn us too. Apparently Ringwald’s threatening to get even.”
“What if Jonah had won? Wouldn’t it be the same?”
“No. He’d entice the boys back with the hope of winning more tomorrow.”
“So then . . .”
Anders slammed his hand on the table. “You’re a young woman who pulled the fleece over that man’s eyes. You made a fool of him. I’m sure you went in there playing the hesitant sweet young woman who didn’t know the game.”
“Not to mention flirting with him,” Mr. Holt muttered.
Anders cut a glance at her. “You didn’t.”
“Not really. That is, I didn’t mean to.” Lark flushed despite herself. “And I told him we played poker as a family on winter nights, as a parlor game.”
Anders stared at her, arms crossed over his chest.
“He was cheating.” Lark glared right back at her brother. “Cheating people right out of their livelihood—horse, saddle, land. He couldn’t be allowed to get away with that.”
“She has a point there,” Mr. Holt put in. “She showed that swindler up, and that’s a fact.”
Anders huffed out a disgusted breath. “It makes no difference anyway. The deed is done. The only way I see it, we need to get you out of town for a while. You could go visit Tante Grete for a month or so.”
“Are you serious?” Lark pressed the towel to her face again. Surely what she had done was not that bad.
“I have a small house out by the lake, you could stay there to begin with.” Holt nodded as he spoke. “You would be safe there.”
“So I just disappear?”
“What about the rest of us?” Del asked. “All the gossip . . . and the diatribe from Deacon Wiesel will never end. He’ll bar us from the church because we’re her sisters.”
Lark stood and opened the damper before lifting the lids on the stove to set a fire in the few remaining coals. “If we’re going to stay up talking, I need some coffee. How will you explain my disappearance to the good folks of Linksburg?” She tossed in some shavings and blew on the coals till smoke curled, then laid in kindling and a couple of larger pieces of wood. “And besides, I’ve not done anything against the law. If a man won that kind of money, people would congratulate him. And if we had a real pastor again, I would not be the brunt of the weasel’s fury. But if no one ever stands up to him, nothing will change.”
“Be that as it may, the reality is you are in a mess, and that means the rest of us are too,” Anders said.
Lark shut the stove door and sat back down. Maybe they needed a different solution—completely different.
“Remember when we talked about going west?” She watched shock freeze the faces around her. “Well, we did. There are no men around here of good husband material, and we’ve got to do something with our lives now that the war is over. Anders can stay and run the store. Besides, if we all left, Josephine and Anders could get married and move into the house here.”
“I don’t want to go west.” Jonah shook his head. “No and no.”
“They could use a man along, if they’re actually going to do this, for safety and help.” Anders frowned. “I’ve got the store and Josephine, but what’s holding you here? If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be in this fix in the first place.”
“They don’t need me,” Jonah insisted. “Lark is as good as a man. She’s as tall as many and a better shot than most.”
“So what are you going to do, then?” Lark threw up her hands. “You’re the one who keeps wanting adventure. And getting into trouble instead.”
Jonah squirmed in the chair. “I—I’ll work with Anders at the store.”
Anders studied his younger brother. “Why the change? I’ve been trying to get you there for ages.”
“And I had to about break your arm to get your help when I was running the store.” Lark narrowed her gaze at him. Was that a flush creeping over her little brother’s ears? “There’s a girl, isn’t there?”
“No!” Jonah scrubbed his hand over his hair, his ears turning scarlet. “I mean, I helped Lila Johnson find baking soda when I was in there the other day. She said she didn’t know what she would have done without me. So I can be good at helping people find stuff.”
“At least when they are pretty daughters of livery stable owners.” Lark rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to stay, you’d best be serious about it.”
“I am.” He did sound serious.
“There can be no gambling. None! No going to the saloon for anything.” Anders’s eyes sparked fire. “And if I catch you at it, you are out on your own. Out of the store, out of the house, out!”
Silence pulsated in the room. Only the growing fire snapped and spit.
Lark huffed out a breath. “Now that that’s settled, back to our original problem. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense, and not just because of this situation. I think the female portion of this family should head west.”
A collective breath sucked the air from the silent room.
Lark looked around at her family, only her heavy eyebrows twitching. Were they as observant as she was, that would tell them she was anything but certain. “Think about it. We have some money saved, and with
