“Sit. Ask.” Piper was forthright and I liked that.
I smoothed my dress where she’d grabbed, fixed my glasses, then did as she bid, my hands folded in my lap. She sat across from me and waited.
“Two husbands?” I wondered. It wasn’t the most polite of questions to start with. I should have asked after the baby or the weather or even about the town.
She smiled. “I think I’m going to like you.”
I wasn’t sure what I’d said that made her say so, but I was pleased nonetheless.
She sighed when she heard one of the men make silly talk to the baby. “Reduced to blathering idiots. They’re going to lose their minds when she’s old enough to court.”
I could only imagine.
“Two husbands. Yes. Since the town is small, cut off in the winter, full of miners and not so full of women, the town council passed a law allowing two men to marry the same woman.”
“Everything all right in here?” Jed stuck his head through the doorway, looked to me. It had been all of two minutes since I left him on the porch.
“I have not escaped out the back door.”
“Go away,” Piper told him, shooing him with motions of her hand.
He frowned, then came into the room. “Your husbands asked me to bring coffee. They are besotted and too distracted by Lillian to play host.” Going to the stove, he grabbed the coffeepot. I stared idly at his back, the broad shoulders.
“Sorry. I should have offered,” she replied, not seeming guilty in the slightest for not offering her brother refreshment.
He offered a small shrug, but continued to work on the task, although I couldn’t see what he was doing. “You are occupied with Eve. Continue.”
“You want to eavesdrop,” Piper countered.
He turned and brought me a cup of steaming coffee, put it on the table before me. I offered my thanks as he turned back to get another for Piper. When he held it out, she declined. Grabbing one more cup, he nodded to me, then left, headed back toward the other men.
“He likes you,” Piper murmured. She waggled her eyebrows and I frowned.
I stiffened my spine, took a sip of my coffee. “Likes me?” I looked down at the cup. It was very bitter.
“Yes. Likes you,” she countered, distracting me from my drink.
“I’m a widow of a man I never met. Jed can’t like me.” I kind of liked him, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. It was a foolish notion, anyway. I took another sip and oddly enough, the coffee was warming me all over.
Piper shrugged. “I’ve never seen Jed behave in such a way before.”
Knox came into the kitchen. No baby was on his shoulder, so I assumed she’d been claimed by another. “Lillian spit up a little and we need a dish towel.” He looked about, then grabbed one from the table. Instead of returning to the other room, he stopped and looked to me. “All right?”
I bit my lip to keep from smiling, gave a slight nod.
“Go… away,” Piper said, clearly enunciating both words.
Knox grunted, then disappeared.
Piper smiled broadly, leaned in, spoke in a low, conspiratorial voice. “He likes you, too.”
“What?” My cheeks burned hotly and I tried to hide it behind a gulp of coffee. “Both of them? Impossible.”
She nodded. “Not impossible. Not here.”
“I’ve never even had one man interested.”
“Why not?” Piper asked.