Page 30 of Borrowed Time

I wasn’t entirely hopeful — mass-produced clothing wasn’t as much a thing in 1884 as it had been even in Seth’s time, let alone the twenty-first century — but at least the errand gave us a reason for going into the store.

“Only one way to find out,” I said with a smile.

The foot traffic on San Francisco Street was heavier than I would have expected. True, it was Friday afternoon, but as far as I knew, the lumber mills ran up until at least five or six o’clock.

But then I heard a train whistle off in the distance and guessed that some of the people around us had probably disembarked from the train and were planning to spend the weekend in Flagstaff before they moved on to their real destinations.

Seth held the door to Brannen’s open for me so I could head inside. The space was bigger than I’d been expecting, even larger than McAllister Mercantile in Jerome, but then again, Flagstaff had a much bigger population despite all the people who’d come to the Verde Valley to work in the copper mines. Shelves behind the counters held stacks of fabric in all sorts of colors and weaves, and one side of the store had large barrels of what I guessed were corn and wheat and flour.

Almost at once, I spied Clara DeWitt behind the counter. She was helping a thin older woman in a black dress, but I didn’t miss the way her gaze zeroed in on Seth and me, reflecting a little surprise. I supposed I should have remembered that she workedat the store and that we would have a pretty good chance of running into her, but that detail had slipped my mind.

Oh, well. How much could she gossip about, really? Maybe she would think it a little strange that someone would visit Flagstaff in November without bringing along an overcoat, but it wasn’t the sort of oversight that couldn’t be easily excused. Otherwise, I thought Seth and I were acting just the way a brother and sister new to town might be. And now that I knew Jeremiah had cast some subtle magic to disguise our comings and goings from his house, I doubted there was much that anyone — even a massive gossip like Clara DeWitt — could find to talk about.

But then the woman in the plain black dress stepped away from the counter, a small parcel wrapped in brown paper tucked under her arm, and Clara immediately zeroed in on Seth and me.

“Why, Mr. and Miss Prewitt!” she exclaimed. “How good to see you! What brings you to Brannen’s today?”

“I’m in need of a good winter coat,” Seth replied immediately. “It seems that in all the hustle and bustle of disembarking, I left my coat behind on the train. Do you have anything that would work for me?”

Obviously, I didn’t have to worry about Seth’s ability to think on his feet. Sure, I already knew he was smart…and handsome…and kind…but I should have guessed he would also be good at improvising.

Clara’s gaze moved up and down his form in a way that was almost but not quite predatory, and I found myself starting to bristle.

Wasn’t the girl supposed to have a fiancé?

That was what my mother had told me, anyway, so I assumed it must be true. However, it seemed clear that even if Clara’s heart was supposedly taken, that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to get an eyeful of any handsome newcomers in town.

“I think we might have something,” she said. “Let me go look in the back room — we don’t keep items like that out front.”

No, while there were bolts of fabric and stacks of shoeboxes, as well as a folded pile of shawls on a table off to one side, it didn’t look as though they had much ready-made stuff on hand. The shop wasn’t really set up to display items that needed to be hung up, so I could see why they kept those odds and ends in their storeroom.

“Take whatever time you need,” Seth told her. “We’re not in any hurry.”

That was for sure. I figured after we wandered around the shops, we could head over to the park and take a stroll before sunset, but it wasn’t as if we had anyone waiting for us.

In fact, he sent me the smallest sideways smile after Clara headed into the stockroom, as if signaling that he knew we had more than enough time to kill. I permitted him the slightest lift of the corner of my mouth before I looked forward again, knowing that it was probably better for me to remain deadpan.

She returned a few minutes later carrying a heavy black wool coat. “Try this,” she said. “It might be a little big, but we don’t have the next size down, and anything else would be far too small.”

Seth took it from her as she handed it across the counter. Truly, the thing looked very bulky, but I supposed a sleek silhouette wasn’t what people generally were searching for in a winter garment.

Then he shrugged it on, pulling it over the frock coat he already wore. Maybe it was just the slightest bit big around the waist, but the shoulders and sleeves seemed to be the right size, which was the important thing.

“It’s great,” he said. “I’ll take it.”

“That’ll be five dollars,” Clara said and then paused, as if wondering whether he was going to protest the price.

But since things in 1884 were far cheaper than they were in 1926, Seth didn’t even blink. “Sure,” he replied, and reached in his pocket to pull out several of the coins Jeremiah had given him.

“Are you going to wear it?” Clara asked next, her expression almost dubious.

I could see why. The temperatures today were a little chilly, but he wasn’t going to need anything that heavy until the sun went down.

“No,” Seth said. “But I’ll just carry it. That way, it’ll be handy if I want to put it on.”

Now she seemed to be doing her best to look neutral. “Very good. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

Unlike Seth, I had pretty much everything I needed. True, the gown my mother had been wearing when my father was shot had been an utter ruin and thrown out long before I was even born, but she’d left behind five other dresses and their assorted underthings, along with several shawls and cloaks, so I figured I was good to go.

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