Free Ten Thousand Charms by Allison Pittman Page A

nothin’ good for her here. I don't want her to be wild, to grow up around—”
    “People like me?”
    “I didn't say that.”
    “You were about to.”
    “No, I wasn't.”
    Kate was fully awake now, her blue eyes taking in the full vision of her father's face. A contented gurgle escaped her mouth, and another escaped her other end. The tension in the room was immediately broken, and both Gloria and John William laughed.
    “I think she needs a change,” Gloria said, reaching to take the baby.
    “I think you're right. Should I leave?”
    “Leave." Gloria said. “Listen, MacGregan, if you're planning to take this little one off to the Oregon Territory you're going to have to learn to change a diaper. Open that top drawer and fetch out a clean one.”
    John William pulled a clean square of linen from the top drawer of the bureau in the corner.
    “You're forgetting somethin',” he said, handing Gloria the clean diaper and watching, fascinated, as she deftly removed the soiled one. “I asked you to come with me. I need you to take care of Kate.”
    Gloria was thankful to have the task at hand to command her attention. She couldn't decide if she felt gratitude or fear. She'dnever been needed before, not for any noble caus, anyway. How many evenings had she sat around various parlors with her fellow prostitutes, talking about the moment when some man would come along and offer to take them away from that life? Rescue by marriage had never been Glorias longing, but from the dreamy expressions of younger girls and the hardened expressions of the older women, she knew that any life with any one man was preferable to life with hundreds of them. Now, here she stood, on the threshold of an opportunity to take her away from the shame she'd created, and she was gripped with crippling indecision. This was no leap she was willing to take without being certain of just how and where she would land.
    “What about Danny?” she asked. Kate was freshly diapered, and Gloria handed her back over to John William.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, how does he figure into the picture?”
    “Danny's your son,” John William said softly. “He figures in with you, of course.”
    “What about his father?”
    “His father?”
    “Yes. Or didn't you think he had one?”
    “I guess I never—”
    “No, of course you didn't. I know Fm a whore, but 1 do have some sense of…” her voice trailed in search of a word. “I mean, it wouldn't be right to just take off in the night with another man's child, would it?”
    “Do you know, then, wh—um, where his father is?”
    “You meant to ask if 1 know who his father is. And the answer is yes to that one. Where he is is another story”
    “Is he here, do you think? Is that why you came here?”
    “Here seemed just as good a place to look as any,” Gloria said. “I came where I had friends.”
    “No family?”
    “Not until Danny.” Gloria turned her attention to the baby boy, still asleep despite the rise and fall of the voices in the room.
    “And while 1 appreciate your offer, 1 just don't think I'm ready to go off and become some farmer's wife.”
    There was a beat of silence in the room, then John William said, “I'm not askin’ you to be my wife.”
    The life Gloria led to this point offered few opportunities for her to feel embarrassment. Shame, sometimes, but true embarrassment was a reaction she wasn't sure she was capable of. Until now.
    “Oh,” was all she could reply
    “Don't get me wrong,” John William said. Kate was beginning to fuss, and he jostled her a bit to comfort her. “I just—”
    “You just what? Figure I have no life so I can just pull up what I got and haul off with you? You think I got no better future than to play wet nurse to your brat until she takes herself off and you can drop me off in some God-forsaken ditch in the middle of the wilderness?”
    Gloria's voice swelled with anger even as her breasts swelled with milk for the now crying Kate. She