“He fell,” Tim said loudly. “The boy tripped over a box and went right in the water. I tried to catch him, but I couldn’t.”
“Is that right, lad?” Eli asked, looking at Cay’s wet form in sympathy.
The three of them were watching her, waiting for her answer, and Cay was tempted to tell the truth—but she knew that was the female way. She’d seen her brothers do awful things to one another, but they’d die before they told. It seemed to be some misdirected code of male honor to hide the truth.
She had to bite her tongue but she said, “Yes, I fell.”
“There now,” Eli said kindly. “At least you weren’t hurt.”
Alex put his arm around her shoulders protectively. “Come on, let’s get you into some dry clothes.” He looked at Eli. “We’ll see you both early tomorrow morning.”
“Mr. Grady should be here by noon,” Eli said. “I’ll let you tell him we have no recorder.”
“I will,” Alex said and started to lead Cay away.
But she turned back. “I forgot my hat.” When she’d fallen into the water, her hat had come off and landed on the wharf. As she picked it up, the boy Tim was standing there, smirking at her in triumph. Water was running down Cay’s hair and dripping onto her nose. She knew she shouldn’t be so childish and she certainly shouldn’t stoop to that hateful boy’s level, but she couldn’t help herself. Maybe the male clothes she was wearing were turning her into Tally. As she came up from getting her hat, she stuck out her leg and hooked her foot around his ankle. His feet flew out from under him and he fell forward, his face hitting the side of a wooden crate.
Cay put her straw hat firmly on her head and walked past him with her chin in the air.
“He gave me a bloody nose!” Tim yelled from behind her.
Eli gave the boy a hard look. “But it was your own fault, wasn’t it, lad? Just as you said it was young Cay’s fault that he fell in the river, so was your mishap an accident. Wasn’t it?”
Cay kept her back turned and her breath held.
“Yeah, I tripped,” Tim said with reluctance.
Smiling, Cay looked up at Alex. “Are you ready to go?”
“I am unless you want to do something else. Maybe you’d like to run the boy over with a wagon.”
“No. A bloody nose is enough.” She was smiling sweetly up at him. “Do you think we could buy me some new clothes? Otherwise I’ll have to run around naked until these dry.”
“Cay, lass, after what you did to that boy, I’ll obey whatever you say.”
“If only that were so,” she said with a sigh, making Alex laugh.
Thirteen
Cay held her wet clothes at arm’s length and straightened her pretty new waistcoat. The owner of the trading post said he’d purchased it from a young gentleman who needed money for supplies before he set off into the wilderness.
“He never came back,” the man said, his eyes wide as he tried to frighten Cay. “He probably got eaten by something.”
“My brother isn’t going on the trip,” Alex said with no humor in his voice. The last thing he wanted was for Cay to be more afraid than she was already. “How much is the waistcoat?”
Now, Alex frowned at the way Cay kept looking at the embroidery around the edge of the vest. It was of honeybees buzzing about a border of wildflowers. His personal opinion was that she looked so feminine already that she should have put on the old, nearly worn out garments that he’d chosen for her. But nothing would do for her but to buy the decorated waistcoat. “Stop that or people will know you’re a girl,” he said under his breath.
“That man thought I was a boy. And that hideous Tim thought so, and Eli didn’t doubt that I was male. It’s only you who thinks I look like a girl.”
“They’re all blind.”
Moving ahead of him, she turned around and walked backward. “Are you telling me that if you saw me now, if you didn’t know me that is, and had never seen me before, that you’d somehow know that I was a girl?”
“Yes,” Alex said. “You walk like a girl, talk like one, and you nag like a girl. I’ve never seen anyone more feminine than you are.”
“I think there’s a compliment in there.”
“No, there isn’t.” Alex was frowning. “If I leave you here, you’re going to be found out, and when someone realizes that you’re hiding your true identity, they’re going to ask why.”