Page 49 of My Heart Will Find You

She waved her hand. “Trust me, you’ll love it.” She left the room. “Since you eat it and only it seven days a week,” she said under her breath.

She still wasn’t used to the big range that burned wood, but she managed. When the Denver omelet was done, she took it and a cup of strong black coffee to her father. He was looking at Max’s account books and shaking his head in disbelief. Etta knew better than to talk to him. Small talk was not allowed when Thomas Wilmont, aka Preacher Tobias, was working.

In the kitchen she grabbed a leftover biscuit and some cold bacon and made herself a sandwich. “I just invented McDonald’s. I’m a millionaire,” she muttered as she went back upstairs.

Foremost in her mind was that she had to find Phillip or his Old West equivalent. In one way, last night’s dinner had been a great success, but the hurt in Alice’s eyes haunted her.

How do I do it?she wondered. Max was gone, probably up to his ears in men and cows, so how did she do this with no car, no phone, no anything?

Once she was in Max’s mother’s bedroom, she caught sight of herself in the old mirror over the dresser. She gasped in shock. Maybe she should have woken up in Henry’s house. She needed a long shower and a triple hair wash. Cooking grease wasn’t exactly hair conditioner.

She opened a drawer, looking for something that could help, and pulled out a bar of soap. Not the square, homemade lye thing that was in the kitchen, but soft, French milled soap.

She clutched it to her bosom. “I love you,” she whispered.

A vision of Max, sparkling clean as he entered the kitchen, came to her. He’d bathed in the river. The only river she knew of was at the homestead.

Etta knew that before she went anywhere, she had to make herself look presentable. Her mind spun with a plan of how to do it.

There was a little desk in the corner, and she found ivory sheets of paper in a drawer. “Thank you,” she whispered to Max’s mother. She didn’t have time to figure out where towels were so she pulled a sheet off the bed. Dust went up and she coughed, but she rolled it up like a bedroll and tucked it under her arm.

Downstairs, she went directly to Max’s office and opened the door without knocking. Of course her father glowered at being disturbed, but this was an emergency. Alice’s future was at stake. Etta knew that her father loved maps. He even liked to draw them. “Do you know where the old Lawton homestead is? The sod house?”

“I do.”

She put the paper in front of him. “Then draw me a map of how to get there.”

He didn’t hesitate but started drawing. “You seem to know a great deal about me.”

“A bit. You’ll be hungry at one. There’s beef and biscuits in the kitchen. And if you see Alice, talk to her. You two like each other.” She took the map and started to leave, then looked back. “Have you ever heard of Wyatt Earp?”

“No.”

It was too early for the man to be well-known. “You should keep a diary of your life now. You’re good at writing.” She smiled at his familiar look. He was trying to figure out what she was up to.

As Etta left the house, she saw Alice who gave her a look ofYou are dead to me, then went back inside.

“This is very bad,” Etta said as she went to the stables. She was glad to see Rufus. When he smiled, she saw that he needed a dentist. “I need to go somewhere. Could you give me your most gentle, easy to ride horse?”

“Tulip is good. You want the sidesaddle?”

Etta knew that meant throwing her leg around a big post and trying to stay on. All in a belief that women shouldn’t part their legs wide—except when creating and delivering babies, that is. “No, thanks. I’ll take the wide angle version. I need the balance.”

He seemed ready to protest but since the cook-off, he was a fan of hers. He saddled a big, lazy looking mare and made no comment as he strapped the rolled bed sheet on the back. He put a wooden box down for her to climb up.

Except for pony rides when she was a child, Etta had never been on a horse. It was tall and wide. Very wide. No gym abductor machine had prepared her legs to be spread that far apart.

When she groaned, Rufus looked at her in concern.

“So how do I make this critter back up?”

He looked ill. “I’ll get the buggy.”

“No! Just give me some lessons and I’ll be fine. And do not tell Max that I know nothing about horses. Or riding.”

Rufus looked like a man facing execution. “He won’t like this.”

“Please,” she said as sweetly as she could manage. “It’s a surprise for my new husband.”

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