need a cook,” she answered. As she and Cole had passed by, all the townspeople had stopped what they were doing and looked at them. Was it the sight of her in the blindingly white dress, or were they shocked at seeing a man and woman so close together in public? she wondered. From the looks of the picture-perfect town, the only sin in this place was staying up past nine P.M.
“How about the Palace Hotel?” he asked.
Much to her chagrin, Cole’s words made a feeling of panic run through Kady. She was going to be alone. Alone in a strange town, in even a strange time period, for that matter. She knew nothing, really nothing, so how was she going to cope? For a second she almost threw her arms around Cole’s neck and begged him not to leave her alone.
Be strong, Kady, she told herself.
“This will be fine,” she said, taking a deep breath to keep her voice from shaking. He’d stopped before a plain board, two-story hotel, probably the largest building in town. And like the other buildings, it was clean and tidy with lace curtains at the windows.
After Cole dismounted, he put up his arms to help Kady down, then stood for a while looking down at her. “Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind? I could take care of you.”
For just a second Kady swayed toward him, but she was too self-reliant to give in to her impulses. She’d always taken care of herself, so she couldn’t very well start now, at thirty, depending on some man to take care of her.
“I’m sure.” She straightened her spine, then held out her hand to him. “Thank you, Mr. Jordan, for all that you have done for me, and I appreciate your concern.”
Cole took the hand she offered and solemnly clasped it. His face was grim. “I’ve never done anything like this. You are a woman under my care, and I can’t just leave you without any protection. What if you don’t get a job?”
Kady’s smile was smug. She had every confidence that all she had to do was cook for someone and she’d be hired. “Didn’t you say that this was a mining town? It must be full of single men, and surely some of them will want a cook. Now, please go,” she said, feeling her confidence returning. How could she not find a job?
“All right,” he said reluctantly, “but I want a favor from you.”
Warily, she said, “What?”
“Tomorrow at two o’clock I will meet you in front of the church. It’s that way, near the end of this road, you can’t miss it. I want you to show up there tomorrow and tell me that everything is all right with you so I can rest easy. Agreed?”
Kady smiled up at him. “All right, it’s a deal. I’ll be there at two on the dot and tell you about my wonderful new job, and maybe I’ll even have found someone who knows where the petroglyphs are.”
“That’s a good idea,” Cole said with a smile. “There are some old prospectors around here who know the mountains backwards and forwards. Maybe they’ll remember the place.” Still holding her hand, he gave it a squeeze. “Now, you behave yourself, and I wish you all the luck in the world.”
With a little tug on the brim of his hat, he turned and walked down the cleanly swept boardwalk.
It would be hard to describe the depth of the emptiness Kady felt when she saw the back of Cole Jordan. She’d known him only a day, but he was the only person she knew in this town. “The only person I know in this century,” she said as she watched him pause near a group of boys. They were playing marbles in the dirt, and Cole interrupted to hand them something he pulled from inside his pocket. Since she knew what his pockets contained, she knew he wasn’t giving them candy. What was he giving them then?
Money, she thought as the kids looked into their palms, then took off running in the direction of the ice cream parlor that she knew was just around a bend in the road.
“Choirboy,” she said to herself, then tossed her train over her arm and went inside the hotel. Maybe she should have asked Cole to buy her a new dress, she thought. But no, a clean break from him was better.
Inside, the hotel was just as she’d imagined, quietly busy, filled with well-dressed men and women walking sedately arm in arm. Through a doorway she could see an area filled with horsehair-covered furniture, a huge Persian rug on the floor. To her left stood a high counter, with pigeonhole mailboxes behind it and a nice-looking young man writing in an enormous ledger.
Smiling, she went to the clerk. “Could I see the manager? Or the person in charge of hiring people?” she asked politely.
The man looked down at her white silk gown, then raised one eyebrow. Did he think she’d been stood up at her wedding? Kady wondered, feeling embarrassed. Number one on her agenda was to get a new dress. Maybe she could get an advance on her salary.
One o’clock, Kady thought, looking up at the clock on the tower on top of the firehouse. One more hour to go before she was to meet Cole and she could see the church from here.
What was she going to tell him? she wondered. Would she have to go onto her knees to beg him to buy her a meal? At the mere thought of food, her stomach growled. Due to how little she had eaten since coming through the rock, she could pull her corset in another couple of inches.
Turning from the firehouse, she started walking toward the church but had to stop. Not too fast, she told herself, save your energy. Trying to keep her shoulders back and her pride intact, she walked slowly down the dusty road, doing her best to ignore the townspeople who passed her.
Kady was sure that by now they knew all about her, how she’d arrogantly told the hotel manager that she was a better cook than anyone he’d ever had at his hotel. Just as arrogantly, he told her he didn’t want any women in his kitchen, inciting the men to who knew what acts. He hadn’t even considered giving Kady a job.
So much for equal rights, she had told herself as she left the hotel. So the first place she’d tried had turned her down. So what? There was an entire town full of employment opportunities; she’d find something somewhere.
But as night drew near and Kady still had no place to sleep, she began to give up hope that anyone would give her a job, and her despondency began to grow. When the cold Colorado night began to descend, she remembered with great fondness how Cole’s warm body had held her during the night before.
By nightfall she’d tried nearly every shop in town. She’d even made her way out to the Tarik Mine and begged a job there. To her great humiliation, when the mine manager told her that a woman who looked like her would cause riots among the men, she had burst into tears. For a moment the he’d looked as though he was going to relent, but he’d glanced at another man who’d shaken his head no, so the manager did not give in. He did, however, say she could ride back to town on one of the wagons full of ore.
As Kady walked to the wagon with the two men, she saw an open tent set up under the trees, with trestle tables inside, and the tables were covered with food. From the smell of it, everything was fried in the same grease that had been used to lubricate the wagon wheels, but at the moment the smell of any food made Kady’s mouth water.