Page 99 of My Heart Will Find You

She’d kept busy to the point where everyone in town knew who she was. She liked being called Mrs. Lawton. The fact that some of the saloon owners vanished when she saw them didn’t bother her. They were afraid she’d steal their best girls or bully them into hiring Tobias, then he’d see the truth about their finances. Who wanted their money overseen by a preacher?

What Etta hadn’t been able to do was find Henry the painter or the woman she’d seen leaving the dressmaker’s shop. Alice and Etta visited the dressmaker when they went to get Freddy some new outfits for around the house. Her regular attire was causing too much distraction for the men. She’d asked, but the dressmaker had no idea who she meant.

Etta had asked around town about the painter, but people said, “He comes and he goes.” No one knew much about Henry.

She rode to Martha’s farm but didn’t see her.

What she didn’t do was visit the homestead. She too vividly remembered when she’d seen it as grassland. And besides, that was her private place to be with Max.

It was at the night of the third day, as she got into Max’s big, empty bed, that Etta thought maybe she was overstepping the rules of her time there. She could deal with anything old, but new things, like Henry, Martha, and the woman she’d seen, had to wait for Max to be with her.

“Max is everything,” she said as she hugged his pillow. “It all revolves around him.”

On the morning of the fourth day, Saturday, she was so nervous she was jumping at every little sound. Max still wasn’t there. So what was she going to do to prevent what she knew was coming? Whatever she decided, it looked like she’d have to do it alone. Would going to Lester and warning him be enough? Or would he ignore her, a woman?

She was sitting high up on the seat of the buckboard. Rufus was driving, and Freddy, in her new, modest calico dress, was between them. Etta’s plan was to gather and buy enough food that this afternoon she could go to the Kanza with gifts. Then what? Blackmail them into leaving?You get the food if you pack up and leave?Or would hiding be enough? What if they all went to town for the day? Or visited Max’s house?

She wasn’t prepared for when she heard the voice she most wanted to hear.

“Any room for me?”

She twisted around so hard and so fast that Freddy grabbed Etta’s arm to keep her from falling out.

It wasn’t necessary because when Etta saw Max, she just plain fell onto him. She was a foot above him when she let go.

He gave a grunt when her full body hit him and he staggered back a few steps as he fought for balance.

As for Etta, she was like a baby monkey. Her legs wrapped around his waist, her arms around his neck, her face buried in his flesh.

The people who’d seen it were at first too astonished to react, but then they repressed their laughter.

Rufus flicked the reins and drove away, and the men around them quickly left the area.

Max and Etta were alone.

“Miss me?” He was laughing.

She didn’t lift her head, just nodded.

“So you sat around and waited for me?”

“Busy,” she said, her lips on his sweaty neck.

“That’s what I heard. I rode through town and I was told that you are the worst and the best. Some people want you to be mayor, but others want me to run you out of town.”

Etta kept her head down and shrugged. It couldn’t be helped.

“I heard you met John Kecklin.”

“He stole a window.”

“What?” Max was still holding her full weight, and he shifted her a bit. “Window. He stole it to use for his house in Kecklin.”

He pulled back to look at her. “He set up a town while I was gone?”

Again she shrugged.

“How about we go to the homestead and you can tell me everything? And we can go swimming.”

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